But it can be confusing understanding what devices and operating systems supports which file systems-especially when all you want to do is transfer some files or keep your collection readable by all the devices you use. The most common file systems are FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS on Windows, APFS and HFS+ on macOS, and EXT on Linux-though you may run into others on occasion. If you have files larger than 4 GB and mostly share with Macs, choose HFS+įile systems are the sort of thing that many computer users take for granted.If you have files larger than 4 GB and mostly share with Windows PCs, choose NTFS.If you have files larger than 4 GB, but still want pretty good support across devices, choose exFAT.If you want to share your files with the most devices and none of the files are larger than 4 GB, choose FAT32.
