External drives · Speed, cables and hardware

My external drive doesn't show up on my Mac at all — what should I try?

Short answer: Check Finder's sidebar settings show external disks, try another cable and port without a hub, then look in Disk Utility (Show All Devices) to mount, repair or format it. If Disk Utility can't see it either, the drive or enclosure may be faulty.

Work from the simplest cause:

  1. In Finder, open Settings → Sidebar and make sure External disks is ticked — the drive may be mounted but hidden.
  2. Try another cable and port, connecting directly rather than through a hub.
  3. Open Disk Utility and choose View → Show All Devices. If the drive is listed but greyed out, select it and click Mount; if it shows errors, run First Aid; if it's brand new it may need erasing as APFS.
  4. If it doesn't appear in Disk Utility at all, test it on another computer — the drive or its enclosure may be faulty.

Once macOS mounts it, Storage Studio sees it within about 30 seconds.

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