An intriguing under-the-radar addition was made visible in the initial developer betas of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18: a native external drive format capability inside the Files app. Apple is introducing compatibility for the following file systems: MS-DOS (FAT), ExFAT, and APFS (case sensitive or encrypted).

Flash drives, SD cards, SSDs, and hard drives may all be formatted straight from iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 devices by iOS and iPad users thanks to the external drive formatting capability. After connecting an external drive and depressing the disk volume for a prolonged ffvfcperiod of time, users will receive the Erase Disk prompt.