Copy Large Files to a USB Drive

This video explains why you sometimes get a “file too large” error when copying big files onto USB drives or memory cards, even when there is plenty of free space. It also shows how to fix the issue by reformatting the device to a file system that supports larger files:

When trying to copy large files onto a USB drive or flash memory card, have you encountered the “file too large” error? This specifically occurs when you attempt to copy a file larger than four gigabytes onto a USB or flash memory card, even though you may have more than four gigabytes of free space on the device. The system still pops up with an error saying the file is too large for the destination file system.

Fortunately, there is a quick fix for this. Go ahead and locate your device on the computer, right click on the device, and select Format from the drop down.

Under “File System”, you may see that the device is currently formatted as FAT32. FAT32 is an older yet widely compatible file system that was introduced back in the days of Windows 95. While the format is widely compatible across practically all devices, it cannot hold individual files larger than four gigabytes.

So what we want to do is reformat the device using the exFAT file system. This is a newer file format that does not have the four gigabyte file size restriction.

One word of warning: reformatting the device will erase any data it is currently holding. Go ahead and select exFAT from the File System drop down. Everything else can stay the same.

Now click the Start button to reformat. It should only take a few moments for the format to complete.

And that’s all there is to it. Thank you so much for watching!