You can format an external drive quickly and easily in Windows, without the need of any third-party tools. But before you format your USB drive, you need to consider which file system to use.

Here are best free USB Flash Drive Format Tools for Windows 11/10 to format a USB drive in multiple file systems e.g., NTFS, FAT, EXT2, exFAT.

If Windows won't format your USB drive to the FAT32 file system, remove the write protection or use CMD, PowerShell, or free software to do the same.

If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.

If you have to use a flash drive on both Macs and Windows PCs, make sure both systems can read it. Here's how to format the drive correctly.

Microsoft is finally removing the FAT32 partition size limit in Windows 11: FAT32 upgrades from 32GB limit, to 2TB in new Windows 11 builds.

Microsoft is removing the 32GB limit on FAT32 partitions in Windows 11. The FAT32 size limit is moving from 32GB to 2TB in the latest Windows 11 builds.