Dealing with a Mac that won’t recognize your USB drive can be a significant inconvenience. When your USB drive is not showing up on your Mac, you’re effectively cut off from the data you need. But there’s no need to panic; several solutions exist to help you troubleshoot and resolve this issue so that access your files again.
Let’s take a look at some of the causes of a flash drive not showing up on a Mac to determine if you can resolve your particular issue. Some of these fixes are very simple while others may involve performing data recovery on a corrupted or damaged drive.
Method 1: Restart Your Mac
A simple restart can fix many issues with a USB flash drive not recognized on Mac. For example, if your computer has been running for days without a break, then a restart can help clear temporary glitches that might prevent USB detection.
A restart also allows software and operating system updates to install, which can be all it takes to eliminate a bug preventing your USB drive from showing up. Last but not least, all connected storage devices are mounted from scratch when you restart your Mac, and that gives your computer a fresh chance to properly recognize your USB drive.
To restart your Mac:
- Click the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen.
- Select the Restart option from the dropdown menu.
- Uncheck the “Reopen windows when logging back in” checkbox for a clean restart.
- Open Terminal:
- Go to Finder and navigate to Applications. Open the Utilities folder and click on Terminal to open it.
Alternatively, you can use Spotlight Search by pressing Cmd + Space, typing “Terminal,” and hitting Enter.
- Click the Restart button to confirm.
- Wait for your Mac to complete the restart process.
- Open Finder and click the Finder menu.
- Select Settings (Command + ,).
- Go to the General tab (Finder > Settings > General) and make sure the External disks item is selected.
- Go to the Sidebar tab and make sure the External disks location is selected.
- Close the Settings window.
- Connect your USB drive to your Mac.
- Open Disk Utility, which can be found in Applications > Utilities or via Spotlight (Command + Space, type “Disk Utility” and hit Enter).
- Select your USB drive from the list on the left side of the Disk Utility window.
- Click the Mount button at the top of the Disk Utility window.
Loading...Method 2: Address Physical Connectivity Issues
Before you do anything more complicated, you should check if your thumb drive is not showing up on a Mac is if the problem is with the particular USB port that you are using. At the risk of stating the obvious, your first move should be to try the device in an alternate USB port available on your machine.
If the device works in the second port it indicates that the first port may be damaged and may need to be replaced or repaired. However, if the drive doesn’t work in any of your USB interfaces you need to look further to determine the problem.
Method 3: Check Finder Settings
It’s possible that your USB flash drive is recognized by your Mac just fine but isn’t showing up in the usual places (your desktop and/or the sidebar in Finder) because certain specific settings have been changed.
To quickly check if this is the case, you can navigate to the Computer section in Finder (Go > Computer). If the USB flash drive is displayed there, then you just need to make a few quick modifications of your Finder preferences to make it accessible the way you’re used to:
Method 4: Provide Sufficient Power for Your USB Drive
Your flash drive may not be registering with your Mac due to an issue of insufficient power. This is especially prone to happen if you use a bus-powered USB hub and have multiple devices connected simultaneously.
The solution here is to try connecting the flash drive directly to the computer’s USB port. If you need to use a hub, consider investing in a high-quality powered USB hub that comes with its own power supply. A good powered hub can easily deliver 85 watts of power, which is more than enough to handle multiple devices simultaneously without the power drain issues that plague basic bus-powered hubs.
Method 5: Force Mount Your USB Drive
Sometimes a USB drive can be in a peculiar state where your Mac can detect the drive’s presence but is unable to mount it automatically (often because of a software glitch or some background application preventing it). In such situations, you can mount the USB drive manually: