I got this USB stick with some music on it. I copied the content on my machine. Two days later I wanted to delete the data from the USB drive. The Move to trash option is missing, and if I try to drag and drop this into Trash can it doesn't work. This message pops up
The item “[file name]” can’t be moved to the Trash because it can’t be deleted.
What is causing the issue and how do I resolve it?
I am using a Mac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6. The filesystem on USB drive is NTFS.
Best Answer
Your USB drive is formatted with NTFS file system. By default, macOS can only read a drive formatted with NTFS file system. It does not include drivers to write to NTFS filesystem.
To delete (technically writing, i.e. making changes) the files and folders on NTFS formatted drive, you'll need drivers for NTFS to be installed on your Mac.
If you wish to remove all the contents of the USB drive and use it on computers running macOS, Windows and any Linux distribution, it is recommended to format it with ExFAT or MS-DOS (FAT) file system by using Disk Utility app.