Why does the flash drive say that the file is too big? The file is too large for the destination file system

Sometimes it is not possible to copy a file to a flash drive, even if there is plenty of free space. For example, if you try to write an object that is larger than 4 GB, Windows user may see the message "File...too large for destination" file system».

In such cases, macOS displays the error “The object ... cannot be copied because it is too large for the format of this volume.”

This occurs if the current file system (data organization type) of the drive is FAT32 (or MS-DOS), which does not support writing files larger than 4 GB. To remove this limitation, change its file system.

Formatting deletes all information from the drive. Don't forget to make a copy of important data.

If you're on Windows, open File Explorer. Right-click on the flash drive and select "Format" context menu. In the window that opens, change the file system to NTFS if you plan to use the drive on Windows computers, or exFAT, so that it is fully compatible with both Windows and macOS.

Check the “Quick (clean table of contents)” option, click “Start” and wait until formatting is complete.

If you're using macOS, launch Disk Utility: Finder → Programs → Utilities → Disk Utility. Select the drive in the sidebar and click on the “Erase” button located at the top. In the next window, select the “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” format if you plan to use the flash drive on a Mac, or exFAT so that it is fully compatible with both macOS and Windows.

Click “Erase” and wait until formatting is complete.

After these manipulations, you will be able to record files of any size if there is enough free space on the drive for them.

Let's imagine that you have a USB flash drive to which you want to transfer a movie in good quality, the size of which, let's say, is 5 GB. However, you cannot transfer the movie because even before copying begins, you receive a message like “The file is too large for the destination file system.” And this is even despite the fact that the capacity of the flash card can be 8, 16, 64 or more GB. What is the problem? There is nothing secret here, everything is much simpler than you might think. But the fact is that in the FAT32 file system maximum size The transferred file is only 4 GB or 4,294,967,295 bytes. Therefore, if your file is more than 4 GB and be on a flash drive or external drive Even if you have 50 GB of free space, you won’t be able to transfer it so easily and you will always see the error in the title of the topic. The problem is that the vast majority of current flash drives and external hard drives formatted in the FAT32 file system. The solution is very simple - use the NTFS file system. It replaced the FAT file system. NTFS supports a metadata system and uses specialized data structures to store file information to improve performance, reliability, and disk space efficiency. Has built-in capabilities for restricting access to data for different users and user groups, assigns quotas, etc. In general, this is a much more modern file system that does not have serious file size restrictions. There are two possible options solutions: Converting a USB flash drive to a new file system. Formatting a USB flash drive to the NTFS file system. What is the difference between these two methods, you will find out right now. Formatting a flash drive in NTFS I recommend this option as it is simpler and even more convenient for most users. You will need the flash drive itself. Connect it to your computer. Now a very important point - if there is important files, you will need to copy them to your computer or other storage medium, since we will format the flash drive. You will then place them back on the card. If there are no files, then we immediately begin the process. Go to “Computer”, find the required removable disk and right-click on it. A menu will open, select “Format...”. Next, select the file system (NTFS). You should not touch other settings. Click “Get Started.” After this, the system will ask you whether to continue the procedure, you will agree. Formatting does not take much time. For example, an 8 GB flash drive is formatted in a dozen or two seconds. Once the process is complete, you can transfer your files back without fear of getting the “File too large for destination file system” error again. Converting a flash drive to NTFS For those who do not want to transfer files from a flash drive to a computer, there is another method that allows you to convert a card from the FAT32 file system to NTFS. This method may seem a little more complicated to some. In addition, for the sake of saving information, I still recommend transferring files from a flash drive to another medium in order to avoid deleting files (you never know what can happen). So, insert the flash drive into the USB port, then open the command line as administrator, then enter the following text: convert G: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. IMPORTANT! In my case, G is the letter of the flash drive, you will need to replace it with another letter that represents the card. We wait for the process to complete and we can transfer the files to the flash drive.

It is not uncommon when trying to write big file to a flash drive or external hard drive users receive a message similar to the following: The file is too large for the destination file system. At the same time, there may be several tens of gigabytes of free space on the flash drive, but the file that needs to be written to the flash drive is only a few gigabytes in size. But, nevertheless, writing such a file is impossible. In this article we will look at the cause of this error, and also tell you how to solve this problem.

The reason for the error, with the message file is too large for the target file system, is very simple. The fact is that most flash drives are sold with the FAT32 file system. One of the features of this file system is that it does not support files larger than 4 GB. As a result, when the user tries to write an image to a flash drive DVD disc 4.7 gigabytes in size or any other large file, an error message appears.

There are two ways to solve this problem:

• formatting a flash drive to the NTFS file system;
• Converting a flash drive to the NTFS file system.

The NTFS file system is more modern and does not have serious restrictions on file size, so after you convert your flash drive to the NTFS file system, you can write files of any size to it. If there are no important files on the flash drive, or you can temporarily transfer files from the flash drive to another drive, then it is best to format the flash drive in NTFS. It's easier, faster and more reliable. If there are a lot of files you need on the flash drive and you don’t want to temporarily transfer them to another location, then you can convert. In this case, changing the file system from FAT32 to NTFS will take place without data loss. Now we will look at both of these options.

Option number 1. Formatting the flash drive in NTFS.

If you are pretty tired of the message “the file is too large for the target file system”, and you want to solve the problem quickly and radically, then formatting is your option. But, before you start formatting, do not forget to transfer all the files you need from the flash drive to another drive.

Open “My Computer” and right-click on your flash drive. In the window that opens, select “Format”.

After this, a window will open to format the disk. Here you need to change the file system from FAT32 to NTFS.

You can leave the rest of the settings untouched. After selecting the NTFS file system, simply click on the “Start” button. Next, you will see a message about deleting all data from the flash drive. Click "OK" to start the formatting process. After formatting to NTFS, you will be able to write large files and the “file too large for destination file system” message will no longer appear.

Option number 2. Converting the file system to NTFS.

If you do not want to delete all data from the flash drive, you can convert the file system from FAT32 to NTFS. To do this, open a command prompt and enter the command “convert X: /FS:NTFS”. In this case, “X” must be replaced with the letter that is assigned to your flash drive.

After executing the command “convert X: /FS:NTFS”, the conversion of the flash drive file system to NTFS will begin. The conversion time depends on the speed of the flash drive and the number of files on it. After the conversion process is completed, the message “Conversion completed” will appear in the command line. After this, you can close the command line and start using the flash drive.

Let's imagine that you have a USB flash drive to which you want to transfer a movie in good quality, the size of which, let's say, is 5 GB. However, you can't transfer the movie because before you start copying, you receive a message like "The file is too large for the destination file system." And this is even despite the fact that the capacity of the flash card can be 8, 16, 64 or more GB. What is the problem?

There is nothing secret here, everything is much simpler than you might think. The fact is that in the FAT32 file system the maximum size of a transferred file is only 4 GB or 4,294,967,295 bytes. Therefore, if your file is more than 4 GB and there is at least 50 GB of free space on your external drive, you won’t be able to transfer it so easily and you will always see the error in the title of the topic. The problem is that the vast majority of current flash drives and external hard drives are formatted in the FAT32 file system.

The solution is very simple - use the NTFS file system. It replaced the FAT file system. NTFS supports a metadata system and uses specialized data structures to store file information to improve performance, reliability, and disk space efficiency. It has built-in capabilities to differentiate access to data for different users and user groups, assign quotas, etc. In general, this is a much more modern file system that does not have serious file size restrictions.

There are two possible solutions:

• Converting a USB flash drive to a new file system.

• Formatting a USB flash drive to the NTFS file system.

What is the difference between these two methods, you will find out right now.

Formatting a flash drive to NTFS

You will need the flash drive itself. Connect it to your computer. Now a very important point - if there are important files on the card, you will need to copy them to your computer or other storage medium, since we will format the flash drive. You will then place them back on the card. If there are no files, then we immediately begin the process.

Go to “Computer”, find the required removable disk and right-click on it. A menu will open, select “Format...”.

Click "Get Started." After this, the system will ask you whether to continue the procedure, you will agree. Formatting does not take much time. For example, an 8 GB flash drive is formatted in a dozen or two seconds.

Once the process is complete, you can transfer your files back without fear of getting the “File too large for destination file system” error again.

Converting a flash drive to NTFS

For those who do not want to transfer files from a flash drive to a computer, there is another method that allows you to convert the card from the FAT32 file system to NTFS. This method may seem a little more complicated to some. In addition, for the sake of saving information, I still recommend transferring files from a flash drive to another medium in order to avoid deleting files (you never know what can happen).

So, insert the flash drive into the USB port, then as administrator, then enter the following text: convert G: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. IMPORTANT! In my case, G is the letter of the flash drive, you will need to replace it with another letter that represents the card.

We wait for the process to complete and we can transfer the files to the flash drive.

Once again, we will deal with a fairly common problem for ordinary users. After all, the limited size of a file on a removable storage device is far from an innovation. Wouldn’t it be a shame if you downloaded a video from the Internet in the best quality, but you can’t show it to your friends because the file size on the flash drive is limited?

If you still don’t understand what I’m talking about, let me explain. Most flash drives have a file system called FAT 32. Its peculiarity is that when you try to write any file or archive onto it, the total volume of which exceeds four gigabytes, you will see a system message stating that the file you need is for the entry is too large for the target file system. Now, I think you understand what we are talking about.

But don't rush to get upset. I have good news for you. You can say goodbye to the message that the file you need to write is too large for the target file system once and for all. Moreover, for this you do not at all have to be a virtuoso in computer technology or have any professional knowledge or skills. In order to be able to write files larger than four gigabytes in size to your flash drive, you just need to know one little secret about formatting a particular memory card. Once you recognize it, you will be able to write to this medium even a file that is the same size as a flash drive.

And this applies not only to flash drives. The message “the file you need to write is too large for the destination file system” may appear even in the case of a hard drive. You understood correctly, it may be that your hard drive will also not write files that exceed four gigabytes in size. Everything will depend on what file system your device has. ExFAT, FAT16, FAT32 - all this will not work for you, since these outdated systems do not allow you to see these large files. So here's a little secret. You just need to format the required flash drive or disk in the NTFS system.

As soon as you do this, the files and the file system will immediately be able to “agree” with each other. As you remember, the old lady “Piggy”, before her installation, asked us what kind of file system we wanted to see on our hard drive. Most of us, of course, chose NTFS. However, this operating system did not allow executing this action for flash drives. They could only be formatted in FAT.

Seven, fortunately, allows you to do this, for which the developers deserve a huge thank you. And if you see a system message that the file you need to write is too large for the destination file system, reformat the device you are trying to write data to NTFS. If you have Piggy installed on your computer and you don’t want to change it to Vista or Seven, contact someone you know who has the last two installed operating systems so that they make either a disk in the NTFS system. IN as a last resort, go to some computer store or Internet cafe, where they will do this for you small fee, or even completely free.