I need to transfer an 8GB file from my computer to my USB stick, but I keep running into a problem because the file is too large. Can anyone help me figure out how to overcome this? (Sorry if my English isn't perfect!)
6 Answers
I regularly copy huge folders like 50GB onto my flash drives without issues; it just takes some time. I'm using an older Microsoft Surface on Windows 10, and it still gets the job done!
If you're on a Mac, you'll want to use exFAT instead of NTFS because Mac can't write to NTFS without extra software, even though it can read it. exFAT works well across both Windows and Mac systems!
Another option is to compress your file into a zip or rar format and split it into parts under 4GB. You can then transfer those parts and unzip them once they're on your USB stick.
If all else fails, why not just get a bigger thumb drive? They're super cheap now—like, a 16GB one is just around $5! That could save you the hassle.
Just curious, how much total space does your USB stick have? That could help narrow down options.
It has 64GB, so that should be enough.
The issue is probably because your USB is formatted as FAT32, which has a file size limit of 4GB. You can reformat the USB stick to NTFS, which will allow you to transfer larger files like yours.
You might want to consider exFAT as well, since it also supports larger files.
I tried that, but I lost other files I had on there. Is there any way to recover them?
Yeah, Mac has its own set of limitations.