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Convert APFS to FAT without losing data?

LarryJoe33

LarryJoe33

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 17, 2017
2,669
1,140
Boston
I converted my external media HDD drive a while ago to APFS. I was just messing around and was fully backed up in other places. I converted it from HFS to APFS in seconds with DU and didn't lose any data.

Can I go from APFS to FAT without losing it? Need to get some stuff off it on a Windows machine.
 
Do you have any other (empty) drives laying around? That way you can just connect both to the same Mac and transfer between them. Another way would be to transfer it over your network. I'm not sure you can format to FAT/FAT32 from APFS without formatting it though.
 
Strelok said:
Do you have any other (empty) drives laying around? That way you can just connect both to the same Mac and transfer between them. Another way would be to transfer it over your network. I'm not sure you can format to FAT/FAT32 from APFS without formatting it though.
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Thanks, I have a thumb drive that I also converted to APFS! Doh!, I broke my own rule. I have given so much advice here in telling people to not convert external drives to APFS so they could be flexible! Problem is, the data is over 300GB on the external spinner and the thumb is only 256GB. Great idea though.
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chrfr said:
No.
You'll need to copy your data elsewhere and reformat.
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Thanks, that is what I thought.
 
A bit off topic but wow I didn’t realize how much a pain APFS is to deal with. Boot camp assistant/terminal commands can’t partition it, only way to get that is to completely reformat. Super frustrating.
 
I just think it is so early in it's implementation. Apple also hasn't really shared much with 3rd parties on the inner workings. In a few years there will be tools.
 
FAT32 can't support files larger than 4GB. Any Virtual Machines or even large videos will hit that limit pretty quickly.

Even if there was a tool available, I wouldn't try it.
 
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