Does your Mac not recognize a USB drive? Is the USB flash drive not showing up on Mac after inserting it in the USB port? Find solutions here. Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac when you want to recover data from a USB drive not recognized.
Plug in your bootable USB device and boot up your 2018 2019 Macbook Pro from USB, hold the Command (⌘) key and you’ll see the startup disk screen, select the USB and boot it up. Caveats, notes and disclaimers. You need an uefi bootable image. (we’re uncertain of.
Product Title USB 3.0 Type-C to 4 Port USB Adapter Hub, EEEkit USB. Average rating: 0 out of 5 stars, based on 0 reviews Current Price $17.47 $ 17. 47 List List Price $31.45 $ 31. Gone are the days when you could simply connect your favourite keyboard or external drive straight onto your MacBook Pro. Apple has even gone as far as removing the usual USB 3.0 hubs from the MacBook Pro altogether. But, most devices out there still run on USB 3.0. So, how do you connect them.
Mac Won't Recognize USB, What Should You Do?
Commonly, when you insert a USB drive in the USB port on a Mac computer, the drive will soon appear on the desktop or hide in the Finder, letting you access, view, and manage data on it. Did you come across the situation that no matter how many times you try to connect the USB drive with a Mac computer, the USB drive is not showing up anywhere? Why this time Mac won't recognize a connected USB you may wonder. Though not a usual thing, the issue of an external hard drive or flash drive not showing up on Mac happens sometimes. What should you do in this circumstance? What are the effective solutions to make your USB drive show up again?
This page basically covers all the possible fixes for USB not showing up on Mac, which also applies to the similar issues of other storage devices like an external hard drive not showing up on Mac, flash drive not showing up on Mac, SD card not showing up on Mac, etc. Take a quick glance at the main content and directly jump to the part you're most interested in.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Fix 1~4. Some basic check and change settings | 1. Change the connection way 2. Change settings for desktop 3. Change settings for Finder 4. Check system information..Full steps |
Fix 5~8. Repair corrupted USB drive | 1. Reset USB ports 2. Repair in Disk Utility 3. Repair with the terminal 4. Reformat USB drive..Full steps |
Fix 9~10. macOS troubleshooting and manual repair | 1. update macOS and firmware 2. Manual repair service..Full steps |
10 Fixes for USB Not Showing Up on Mac
The reasons behind the problem of a USB device not showing up are various, including the USB port is not working, USB drive corruption, virus infection, macOS faulty, etc. So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk, and finally solve it!
- Important
- As losing the access to data is the most direct impact of Mac not detecting a USB drive, you might need to perform USB data recovery on Mac.
Fix 1. Change the USB-to-Mac connection way
Have you tried to restart your Mac once or twice? Before taking further measures, don't forget the most efficient way to tackle commonplace hardware glitches that arises from time to time. If this operating system restarting fails to solve the current problem, move on to check the physical connectivity issue step by step.
Step 1. Plug the USB drive out from the not working USB port and change to the other USB port. Try all the available USB ports on your Mac.
Step 2. Did you use a USB connection cable or a USB-C adapter? If yes, take the USB drive out, and directly plug it in the USB port.
Step 3. Is there the other Mac computer available to you? If yes, try to connect the USB drive to this computer. Is it showing up normally?
Step 4. For SD card owners, the common way to connect an SD card to a Mac needs a card reader. If changing the USB ports did not work, try to change a card reader for a new round of tests.
Video changer software. The four steps of troubleshooting a USB drive not showing up on Mac are very basic, however, quite helpful in most cases. Each step can help us exclude the issues of a bad/loose connection, a not working USB port, a lack of power, and other superficial phenomenons.
Fix 2. Change settings for Mac detecting an external hard disk on the desktop
Macbook pro drive size. Occasionally, your Mac has already recognized the USB flash drive but not shown it on the desktop. Thus, you should go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. Then you'll see the USB flash drive showing up on Mac desktop.
Fix 3. Change settings for Mac recognize an external hard disk in the Finder
Finder is the other access for us to check a connected external drive on Mac. If your flash drive or external hard drive is not showing up there, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar, and under Locations, you need to tick the option 'External disks'. By selecting this option, we can make sure that the connected external USB hard drive or flash drive will normally show up in the Finder.
Fix 4. Check the USB drive in System Information
When you cannot find the USB drive on the desktop or in the Finder, try to look for it in the System Information section, which is usually a hidden place for average Mac users.
Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > System Information.
Step 2. Check if the system detects the USB drive. Click 'USB' on the left panel, and you can also check the USB flash drive information.
Fix 5. Reset USB ports on Mac to detect a USB drive
Step 1. Restart Mac computer, press the Command +Option+P+R keys until the Apple logo appears.
Step 2. Press Command+Option+Esc keys to close all applications that are not responding.
Step 3. Plug the USB which is not showing up to your Mac computer. If it doesn't show up, click Apple icon and select 'Sleep'.
Step 4. Wake up the computer after a few seconds by pressing any key.
Step 5. Shut down the Mac, unplug the power cord, reattach it after 15 seconds.
If this doesn't work, we should suspect the corruption issue at this moment. Don't give up and try to do some repair by yourself.
Fix 6. Repair USB flash drive with First Aid if it doesn't show up
Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- Step 2. Select USB flash drive on the left panel of Disk Utility, and click 'First Aid' at the top toolbar and click 'Run'. Disk Utility will repair any errors on the drive automatically.
Step 3. Select the USB drive and click 'Unmount' at the top toolbar, unplug the USB and plug it back in 10-15 seconds.
Fix 7. Check and fix errors in a not recognized USB with Terminal
Step 1. Open Terminal in Utilities, type:diskutil list and press Return.
Step 2. Find the disk number of your USB flash drive, type: diskutil info disk2 and press Return. (Replace 2 with the disk number of your USB flash drive.)
Step 3. Type: diskutil eject disk 2 and press Return.
Step 4. Type: diskutil list and press Return.When the USB disappear from the Terminal list, close the window.
Macbook Pro Boot From Usb Stick
Step 5. Close Terminal and open Console to inspect your drive errors.
Step 6. Click 'Errors and Faults' to check if there are any errors.
Step 7. Reconnect your USB flash drive back to Mac, if no error shows up, your USB flash drive is safe.
Fix 8. Save data and reformat the not showing USB drive
Disk reformatting basically solves many hard drive issues, including the not showing up USB, particularly the time when you are able to see the USB icon but files are not showing. USB drive showing empty makes no sense, so you have to reformat the disk and make it usable again.
Note that reformatting will erase data. As long as the data matters, you need to follow the standard procedure to ensure zero data loss. [1] Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, the professional Mac data recovery software, to perform a full USB drive data recovery. [2] Reformat the USB drive in Disk Utility.
To format the USB drive in Disk Utility:
Step 1. Go to Utilities and open Disk Utility.
Step 2. Select the not showing up USB flash drive in the Disk Utility sidebar.
Step 3. Click Erase on the top.
Step 4. Finish the necessary information (name, format, and scheme) to format the USB flash drive.
Fix 9. Update your macOS and firmware
Did your Mac's OS keep updating all the time? Chances are that your Mac won't recognize a USB drive, especially after a macOS update. This time, take a close look at the settings whether your Mac is up-to-date. Equally, firmware updates address a variety of hardware issues and the functionality of the USB ports could well be one of them. So, keep your software and firmware up to date will likely make the USB drive show up as normal again.
Fix 10. Send the USB drive to a repair center
Nowadays even the branded USB flash drives are not expensive. If you've tried all the suggested troubleshooting methods, the USB drive is still not showing up on Mac, you have to accept the truth that it's severely damaged and beyond your ability to repair it.
Mac won't recognize a badly damaged flash drive or external hard drive since there is no way to show it up, even temporarily, which makes the data recovery difficult. The last chance for you to rescue data is to send the broken USB drive to a specialized data recovery service center nearby, and let the professionals try their best. You need to prepare for the manual data recovery cost, which is noticeably higher than the software data recovery. Hence, always try the cost-effective plan of using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to scan the USB drive for the first attempt.
Step 1. Correctly connect your USB flash drive to your Mac. Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. Start selecting the flash drive and click 'Scan' to let the software search lost files on it.
Step 2. Upgrade old macbook pro to catalina. After a quick scan and deep scan, all files will be presented in the left panel in the scan results.
Step 3. Select files you want to recover and click the 'Recover Now' button. Don't save the recoverable files to the USB drive itself in case of data overwriting.
Traditional ports in a MacBook, like USB-A, HDMI, Ethernet, or even an SD-reader, are gone since 2016. They will probably never be back again. By the time of writing this article, Apple equips its every laptop with a universal Type-C port. With the release of the iPad Pro 2018 and newer, this cheeky port slowly creeps into the iPad and iPhone segment. Many people refuse to adopt USB-C and they stubbornly keep using USB-A cables, drives, and other accessories. If you are not this kind of person and think that it is better to accept the reality and move to the USB-C side, you need to change a few devices you may be using. USB flash drives are one kind of device you need to switch if you don’t want to buy a USB dock for a MacBook. This is where you may start googling something like the best USB-C flash drive for MacBook Pro or any other MacBook.
Buying a separate USB-C flash drive for a MacBook is objectively a better choice compared to USB-C to USB-A dongle or a dock station since you avoid carrying around additional accessories. It is a less cluttered and more affordable solution since many decent-sized USB-C flash drives for MacBooks cost less than a good USB-C dock.
How to Choose the Best USB C Flash Drive for Mac?
Every modern laptop has at least one USB-C port, excluding probably the cheapest options. Despite this fact, shops are still flooded with regular USB-A flash drives. To put it simply, people prefer regular USB sticks compared to USB-C flash drive for a MacBook Pro or any other laptop. Thus, purchasing the best USB-C flash drive for MacBook may be a challenge. In this article, we gathered a list of some nice USB-C flash drives that will work with any modern USB-C equipped MacBook without the need to buy an adapter. Do note that this article is relevant not only for MacBook Pro owners. Any modern USB-C compatible computer will benefit from the listed below flash drives.
For your information: if you carry a relatively new Windows PC that has a Thunderbolt 3 or a simple USB-C port, all of the drives in this article will work great with your computer. Luckily, USB-C is an open standard and there is no difference between the best USB-C flash drives for MacBook or Windows. Just be aware that some external SSDs with USB-C are Thunderbolt 3-based and work only with the devices that support this interface (like a Samsung X5 Portable SSD or Sabrent Rocket XTRM). USB-C does not necessarily mean Thunderbolt 3 support, so make sure you check the spec sheet of your computer. The same goes for USB-C smartphones. In this article, we will focus on the best USB-C flash drives for MacBook Pro, not SSDs. This will make sure all the listed devices are compatible with any computer that has a USB-C port.
Another thing to consider is a protocol compatibility. USB-C flash drives for MacBook carry out USB 3.1 and USB 3.0 protocols to achieve max speed possible, but you can also use these drives with a USB-C 2.0 interface in your tablet, smartphone or a Windows laptop. Just make sure it has USB-C or use an adapter.
Operating speed is something flash drives manufacturers constantly abuse in their marketing campaigns. They always specify sequential write and read speeds. Do note that random write/read speeds are always much lower. This rule applies to both flash drives, HDDs, and SSDs. In other words, always lower your expectations when it comes to flash drives speeds. Even the best flash drives for MacBook Pro work on not-so-impressive speeds compared to even the cheapest SSD.
Since SSD drives are extremely cheap nowadays, buying an external SSD for MacBook Pro may be a better solution. You will get much better speeds and much bigger storage. The only downside is that you will have to sacrifice portability. USB-C flash drives for MacBook Pro are much smaller and more portable compared do external SSDs. If you don’t mind this fact, we recommend checking out SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (from 250 GB up to 2 TB), or Seagate Barracuda Fast SSD (from 500 GB up to 2 TB). There are also extremely portable solutions that creep into USB-C flash drives for MacBook territory. For example, JOIOT 256 GB Portable SSD. It has a form-factor of a slightly bigger USB-C flash drive and does not require lots of space in your bag. Speeds or longevity may not be the best, but you get an insanely portable and inexpensive SSD. For lots of users, us included, this is a solid pick.
We also should warn you about another marketing trap many users fall into. Do not think that USB-C 3.1 flash drive for MacBook will work faster and better than USB 3.0. USB 3.1 means it is only compatible with this interface that peaks at 10 Gbps—a speed that flash storage won’t ever achieve. That is because of memory type limitations. Simply put, flash storage is slow.
Now let us make things double-clear and make sure you have a compatible device. USB-C flash drives for MacBook are compatible with the following Apple computers:
- MacBook 12 2015 and newer.
- MacBook Air 2018 and newer.
- MacBook Pro 13 2016 and newer.
- MacBook Pro 15 2016 and newer.
- MacBook Pro 16.
- iMac Pro 2017 and newer.
- Mac mini 2018 and newer.
- Mac Pro 2019 and newer.
- iPad Pro 11 2018 and newer.
- iPad Pro 13 2018 and newer.
Enough of theory, let us get straight to the best USB-C flash drives for MacBooks.
The Best USB-C Flash Drives for MacBook Pro
Samsung Duo Plus is not the cheapest flash drive out there, but it is undoubtedly one of the best USB-C flash drives for MacBook. What we like about this drive is that it is compatible with both USB-C and USB-C. Whenever you need to plug it into a MacBook, use a built-in USB-C adapter. If there’s an older USB-A machine around, simply take off a default adapter and you’ll get a traditional interface.
No cables, no additional adapters, no docks. Also, a high-quality metal case and a 5-year warranty. As to speeds, it can operate up to 300 MB/sec in a 128 and 256 GB configuration. If you opt for a cheaper 64 or 32 GB spec, max sequential speed lowers to 200 MB/sec. That is how flash storage works, so to get better performance and GB per dollar ratio, stick (no pun intended) to 128+ GB models. The price difference is not that big to save a couple of bucks and sacrifice the speed and available storage.
There’s another bonus called “5-proof protection”. It ensures your drive survives water, shock, magnet, temperature, and x-ray damage, so no need to worry about your data under extreme conditions.
SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive is more affordable than Samsung’s option (you get slower speed for a lower price) model but it carries a more unique approach. Instead of using a special adapter to convert USB-A to USB-C, SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive uses a sliding mechanism. On the one side you have USB-A, on the other USB-C, so whenever you need any of these, just slide it out of the case and plug into a computer. This construction ensures you will not lose a built-in USB-C to USB-A adapter.
Tip: We do recommend you to choose the 16 GB or even 32 GB model. The price difference is almost non-existent but the capacity varies a lot and a speed decreases drastically when you use a model with lower capacity. 32 GB models and below should not exist in a world where every smartphone shoots 4K video and the default storage option is 64 or 128 GB.
Silicon Power USB-C C80. It is not that easy to recommend the best USB-C flash drive for a MacBook since most of them are nearly the same. More often than not, it all comes to ergonomics, design, and form-factor. C80 from Silicon Power comes in the same dual-design with both USB-A and USB-C connection, but it eliminates any caps, covers, sliders, or adapters. It is just a barebones metal USB with a big loop to hang it on a keychain or a leash (neat). Its only downside is that capacity is limited to 128 GB only but that should be more than enough for almost everyone.
PNY Elite is clearly not the best-looking (and it has not the best material either) USB-C flash drive for MacBook, but it offers something other flash drives in our list can’t—a large capacity. Most flash drives offer 256 GB at best, but PNY Elite comes in massive 512 GB flavor so there’s more than enough space for your movies, pictures, and documents. Also, its 64 GB config is more affordable than others. On top of that, you can opt for 256, 128, or 64 GB configurations.
Macbook Pro No Usb
Our last pick comes again from Silicon Power. It is called Silicon Power 128 GB Flash Drive Mobile C10. It ended up in our list of the best USB-C flash drives for MacBook Pro for its portable size. It is much smaller compared to other options in our article and will not protrude much from a side of your MacBook. This allows keeping a drive connected all the time without removing it whenever you are on the go.
Samsung Duo Plus | SanDisk Ultra Dual | Silicon Power C80 | PNY Elite | Silicon Power Mobile C10 | |
Capacity | 32, 64, 128 and 256 GB | 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 GB | 128 GB only | 64, 128, 256 and 512 GB | 128 GB only |
USB Interface | USB-A and USB-C, removable adapter | USB-A and USB-C | USB-A and USB-C | USB-C only | USB-C Only |
USB Protocol | USB 3.1 | USB 3.1 | USB 3.1 | USB 3.1 | USB 3.1 |
Speed | Up to 300 MB/sec | Up to 150 MB/sec | Up to 150 MB/sec | Up to 130 Mb/sec | Up to 150 Mb/sec |
Case Material | Metal | Metal | Metal | Plastic | Metal |
Weight | 0.27 ounce, 7.3 grams | 0.32 ounce, 9.0 grams | 0.8 ounce, 22 grams | 0.64 ouce, 18 grams | 0.63 ounce, 18 grams |
Waterproof | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
That’s it. We hope this guide helped you to learn how to choose a USB-C thumb drive for a MacBook and find the best model for your computer, smartphone or tablet.
Macbook Pro Usb Ports
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