There are plenty of reasons why you might want to format your SD card. It could be for  making space in the memory card, to start a new project or to restore a faulty card.

Whatever the reason may be, you must keep in mind that a reliable SD card formatter Software may be essential in order to format your SD card correctly on your PC or Mac.

In this article, you are going to learn about the 5 Best SD Card Formatter Software available today!

 

5 Best SD Card Formatter Software


Here are my top 5 picks for the best SD Card Formatter Software:

Windows File Explorer

Compatibility: Windows

Windows File Explorer is the easiest and native way to format SD card on a Windows PC. You don’t need an additional app to use this method to format your SD Card. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Connect the SD card to the computer using a card reader.
  2. Go to “My Computer” and select your SD card device.
  3. Right-click on your SD card.
  4. From the pop-up menu, choose the option “Format“.
  5. In the Format window, make sure to choose the correct format options.
  6. It should be set to FAT32 for up to 32GB SD cards and EXFAT for 64GB and above SD cards.
  7. Select the check box “Quick Format”
  8. Hit the Start button.

Format SD Card

The formatting of your SD card is now complete.

Disk Utility App

Compatibility: Mac

The Disk Utility App is the Mac’s native disk formatter app. It’s the most convenient way to format SD card on Mac. Here’s how to format your SD card using this app:

  1. Connect the card to your Mac using a card reader.
  2. Open Disk Utility app.
  3. Select your SD card (If it hasn’t been formatted before, it might have a name like “NO NAME” or “UNTITLED”.)
  4. Choose the option “Erase” from the top menu bar.
  5. Enter a name for the SD card (optional).
  6. Choose filesystem format. If 64GB or larger, choose EXFAT. If 32GB or smaller, choose FAT32.
  7. Hit the option Erase and you are done.

Mac Format SD Card

Pro Tip: Mac OS 10.6.5 or earlier does not support exFAT format. So, you won’t be able to format 64GB and above SD cards. Thus, either upgrade your OS to 10.6.6 or later, or use an SD card that’s already formatted to MS-DOS (FAT) or FAT32.

SD Memory Card Formatter

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

The SD Card Formatter is an alternative method to format an SD card on your Windows PC as well as Mac. It involves downloading a free SD card formatter provided by the SD Association. This software has been made with SD card security standards and is optimized for memory cards.

The main advantage of using this method is that it’s very simple to use. You need to do everything with just a single screen. And the best part is: It’s free!

SD Card Formatter

Download Link (For Windows)

Download Link (For Mac)

EaseUS Partition Master

Compatibility: Windows

Click Here to download EaseUS Partition Master

The EaseUS Partition Master software is based on Windows Disk Management & Windows Command Prompt. It’s another great app to Format your SD Card. This app lets you use the format option to conveniently resolve file system incompatibility or corruption issues on SD card, SDHC card or SDXC card. Main benefits of using this software include:

  1. Simple and user-friendly interface.
  2. Conveniently formats SD cards over 32GB to FAT32.
  3. Solves the problem “Windows was unable to complete the format on SD card.”

EaseUS Partition Manager

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

Compatibility: Windows

Click here to download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

HP developed its USB Disk Storage Format Tool in order to let the users of its own USB external storage media use it to format their flash drive. However, this software was, later, recommended to format any storage media (including SD Cards) regardless of which brand they belonged to.

It’s a compact tool with an equally compact and user-friendly interface. You can easily perform functions like formatting your SD card, or even creating a bootable DOS start-up disk using either internal system files or files at a location you can specify.

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

 

Why Do You Need to Format SD Cards?


The most obvious reason why you may want to format your SD Card is to free up memory space in your card. Other than that, here are a few common reasons why you may need to format your SD Card:

  • If you’re facing trouble with your SD card and don’t know what to do, the best solution is to format your SD card.
  • To improve the performance of your SD Card, formatting it is a great thing to do.
  • To change the file system from one format to another, in order to increase the speed of writing data in the SD card.

Format SD Card

 

Why Install Additional Software to Format SD Card?


You can format your SD card on your computer without installing any additional app. However, some people prefer installing an additional software to format SD Card.

Here are the reasons why installing an additional SD Card formatter software is beneficial:

  1. SD Card Formatter automatically detects an SD card and doesn’t display non-SD cards. So, the risk of accidentally erasing the wrong drive is eliminated.
  2. Typically, these software automatically select the appropriate file system based on the size of the SD card. For example, if you insert a 128GB SD card, it will select exFAT by default to format it according to SDXC specifications. So, it eliminates the risk of selecting a wrong option.

 

 Which SD Card Formatter Software Should You Use?


All the above-mentioned methods/software work pretty well to format your SD card. I recommend that you try the native apps first (File Explorer for Windows & Disk Utility App for Mac) in order to perform the formatting operation. If, for some reason, you’re unable to format your SD Card successfully using these two methods, then you can go for the latter three software.

However, you’re advised to be cautious at every step while you format the data on your SD Card. Otherwise, you may encounter a situation where you’ve accidentally erased the wrong SD Card or Drive.

 

Thanks for reading ?

If you found this article useful, please share it on social media with your family and friends ?


Related Articles:

(back to our tutorials page)