I want to send an album (89 wav files for 13 songs) to a client from 12 years ago. He has an iMAC
https://www.apple.com/imac/       He has not bought a DAW yet, that I know of, anyway.
 
I bought a thumb drive to mail the files. What do I format it as, for him to be able to access the wav files?
Do I use FAT32? or NTFS?
 
I already prepped the tracks and named them well, for clarity and ease in "reassembling them". They've all been exported as wav files.
 
Thanks in advance!
Michael
 
 
 

FAT32 is the most widely compatible as long as none of the individual files are bigger than 4GB.
 
AMB
 

"If you need to exchange files (even occasionally) with a non-Windows system like a Mac or Linux box, then FAT32 will give you less agita, as long as your file sizes are smaller than 4GB."
 
Last sentence from this article. There are utilities to go between, but to be on the safe side, format the Flash Drive to FAT32 before copying to it. The chances that you have a 4GB file for a single wav from a song is highly unlikely.

Thanks guys    Fat32 it is,then!
 Yeah the whole bundle of 13 song sketches is only 3.59gb total  so I'll put them on it, in song folders (averaging .3 gb per song).
Actually, it was formatted to FAT32 and I'm transferring the song folders now. Next step PO and hearing back from him. I didn't want to make discs, so this is good. OR at least will be once he gets his files.
Thanks Again
Michael
 

I had some issues with the  "name sizes"...longer than X..if the name of the files exceeds a certain number of letters/spaces/numbers..etc...They may not copy over from the stick to a hard drive on imac...may be dependant on his OS version also being used...also noted on burning on Mac El Capitan...auto saved files with large names or just long named files, would not burn to DL blu ray with large names on My Mac....
 
So more to check into before sending?.
 
And have you tried drop box?...or a cloud drive sort of method to share a link sent to only your buddies...to gain stored files and projects for downloads, in a private folder for such things?
 
Just thinking out loud for yah....But look into it...it might help?
 
Cheers

Thanks Sir Les.     I sent him 4 songs worth of tracks via We Transfer (the free one) and he didn't get around to downloading them in time. So, rather than waste more of my time, I bought him a thumb drive and mailed them all to him. He's reimbursed me for that and the postage.  So, my end is done.
 
He is in midst of buying a house and packing up to move. That has kept him too busy to buy a DAW to use them, yet.
I'll keep my copies as backup, but it's up to him, now.
 
Michael
 
 

One drive, and drop box work here pretty well ...seem to work well on large files also, ...but if he has no connection/setup.....fiddled de dee..it ain't gonna work out eh?.
 
LOL...hope he does not loose it in the Move....you know how things vanish when in a muddle.
 
His name is not B. Laundry "the stick man" is it?..

 
Nope  not him....... 
 
He's a former guitar student and studio client. He has been doing a bit of writing and demos, so I do think he'll use these tracks to "finish" these older songs, but........... I am keeping my copies in case he does lose them in the move.
 
Michael

Just for future reference, a Mac can read NTFS drives but can't natively write to them. There are third party drivers that make that possible, "Paragon NTFS for Mac" is cheap and I've found it works OK for me.

MacOS can read and write to FAT or exFAT formated drives.

Windows can't natively read the Mac file system, but again there are third party drivers that can. Though the next MacOS release, High Sierra, promises a new file system to replace the aging current MacOS one, so what will happen when that's rolled out remains to be seen. If in doubt, FAT or exFAT is the way to go.

Thanks
It was the way to "went".....  LOL
Michael