How to Format SD Card for Switch on PC?

Switch size is not enough!

Switch is a video game console released and developed by Nintendo in 2017. Now it has become one of the most popular game console in the world. And it published a good number of amazing games that were also well praised in lots of gaming communities, like Super Mario, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

However, lots of players complaint the switch size is too small to save those classic games. It comes with only 32GB, which is not enough for a game console. Luckily, Nintendo has a built-in Micro SD slot, so you can insert a SD card to expand the storage. And when you have a SD card, you may need to format the SD card for Switch.

What format should SD card be for Switch?

Sometimes, you may encounter “Switch can’t read SD card” problem because of incorrect file system/format. What format should SD card be for Switch? The answer is FAT32 and exFAT file system, but FAT32 is better and if you want to use exFAT file system, you need to download some update files for exFAT.

If you have a SD card with wrong file system, you can refer to the following contend to know how to format SD card for Switch. And for a new SD card, we still suggest you to format it to delete unnecessary data and rebuild the file system.

✍Note: Besides, you also need to pay attention to the storage and protocol when you have a new SD card. the Switch only supported a normal Switch no more than 2GB in size, a micro SDHC card between 4GB and 32GB, and a micro SDXC cards with a storage 64GB and 64GB above.

How to format SD card for Switch on PC?

Actually, if the SD card can be successfully recognized, you can format a SD card on switch, just go to “System Settings” from the home screen, at the bottom of the system setting menu, you can see the "format" option. But sometimes, the Switch may fail to format, and you can still perform it on Windows PC.

Considering you need a large external card to save games, some methods are not suitable for Switch because they don’t have the ability to format a large SD card. And you can turn to the free and powerful tool, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard that allows you to format a micro SD card to FAT32 and exFAT file system for switch without size limit. And you can finish the operation within a few steps thanks to the intuitive interface. And here are the steps.

✍Note: If it is not a new SD card, and there are some applications and games on it, please back up the SD card first.

Step 1. Connect the SD card to a Windows computer via SD adapter. Make sure it is detected by the computer.

Step 2. And install Open AOMEI Partition Assistant, and right-click on the SD card in the main interface, and choose “Format Partition”.  

Step 2. And choose “FAT32” or “exFAT” file system in the small window, and click “OK”. 

Step 3. Click “Apply” and view the pending operation, and click “Proceed” to execute it.

Conclusion

After formatting the SD card for the Switch, you can enjoy your games on the SD card. And the AOMEI Partition Assistant is not only a formatter, but a disk management tool. For example, it can be a SD card cloning software to clone SD card to another SD card for upgrading storage size or backing up data.

And you can upgrade to Professional version to have more features, like recover deleted partition on SD card. change SD card serial number.