If you have a thumb drive or flash drive that you want to use with different devices such as your car or TV, you may need to format it into the FAT32 format. In this quick Windows 11 tutorial, we will show you how to easily format your flash drive to FAT32 without downloading any programs or getting into tricky ways of doing it.
First, you need a 32 gigabyte or smaller flash drive or thumb drive to easily format it into the FAT32 format. If you don’t have one, you can find some links to buy one in the description. Once you have your flash drive, plug it into your computer and follow these steps.
If your flash drive doesn’t pop up automatically, go to your file explorer shortcut at the bottom or find it on your start menu. Right-click on file explorer and select This PC. You should see all the drives on your computer, including your flash drive. Make sure you select the correct drive because formatting it will delete everything on that flash drive. Also, make sure everything on the flash drive is backed up because you won’t be able to retrieve the files or folders once it’s formatted.
Right-click on your flash drive and select Format. Choose the FAT32 format, which is the default for flash drives. Leave the capacity on full and the allocation unit size on default. You can also name your flash drive in the volume label section. Make sure quick format is selected, and then hit start.
A popup will appear warning you that formatting will erase all the data on the disk. Make sure everything is backed up before hitting OK. Once the formatting is complete, hit OK and close. Eject your flash drive properly by clicking on the flash drive icon on the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and selecting eject USB flash drive.
And that’s it! Following these steps will allow you to easily format your flash drive to the FAT32 format on Windows 11.