Formatting a Disk to Mac OS Extended Journaled (JHFS+) from Terminal in Mac OS Xĭiskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ DiskName /dev/DiskNodeID Formatting a Disk to Mac OS Extended (HFS+) from Terminal in Mac OS Xĭiskutil eraseDisk HFS+ DiskName /dev/DiskNodeID Formatting a Disk to MS-DOS fat32 from the Command Line in Mac OS Xĭiskutil eraseDisk FAT32 DiskNameGoesHere /dev/DiskNodeIDHere Formatting a Disk to ExFAT from the Command Line in Mac OS Xĭiskutil eraseDisk ExFAT DiskName /dev/DiskNodeIDĪgain, any of these commands erase the entire target disk and obliterates any data on it. As always, be sure you change the disk node as appropriate for your disk. If you are unsure, you can find the disk ID node with “diskutil info “DISK NAME” |grep Device”.įor some quick reference, here are a few examples of various disk erasure methods for different file system format types. Improper identification may lead to erasing the wrong disk, permanently destroying any data on it. It is absolutely critical that you use proper syntax when identifying the disk to erase.

The basic syntax for erasing a disk from the command line in macOS is as follows:ĭiskutil eraseDisk FILE_SYSTEM DISK_NAME DISK_IDENTIFIERįor example, let’s say you have used “diskutil list” to show all of mounted drives on a Mac from the command line, and you have determined the appropriate drive to erase is identified as /dev/disk6s2, you want the disk name to be “Emptied” and you want the new disk file system format type to be Mac OS Extended Journaled (JHFS+), the syntax would be the following:ĭiskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Emptied /dev/disk6s2 To erase a disk from the command line on the Mac, we’ll use the familiar “diskutil” command with the eraseDisk verb and other appropriate flags to specify options for how we want to erase the disk, and to identify which disk is to be erased. It can be found with Spotlight, Launchpad, or in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder. To get started, you’ll need to launch the Terminal application on the Mac which gives access to the command line.

How to Erase a Disk from the Command Line of Mac OS

Disk utility mac terminal commands