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Is there any way to shrink an exFAT partition?

The windows disk manager has the "Shrink" option greyed out.

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6 Answers 6

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The only tool I tested that can actually resize/extend an exFAT partition:

  • DiskGenius (ex Partition Guru) - v4.9.6.564 tested: Did the job, but not so geniously. It didn't understand my GPT partition layout (whole disk displayed as free). I had to rebuild the GPT with another tool that actually deleted my other linux partition. Be sure your disk manager sees all your partitions.

I got many errors that files had unallocated blocks after resizing, so I decided to reformat as NTFS.

All other "best partition manager" tools I tested at date (08/2018) DON'T SUPPORT exFAT resize/extend:

I don't think there is any tool that can resize/extend exFAT on Linux at the moment.

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    Thank you. I just used DiskGenius 5.0.0.589 to rebalance my 1TB HDD that has both exFAT and NTFS partitions. DiskGenius works perfectly and allow me to resize both exFAT and NTFS partitions. One note: for larger partition, the disk check may take a while, so be patient. Sep 22, 2018 at 7:20
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    I have tested it with newer versions: Paragon Hard Disk Manager Advanced 17.10.12 - does not work Gparted 1.1.0 - does not work.
    – Ashark
    Jan 31, 2020 at 8:24
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Yes.

The tool PartitionGuru Free is able to resize exFAT partitions - even doing a defrag when needed.

See also the blog of Eassos.

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  • This one worked for me, looks like it is Windows only. May 18, 2020 at 5:47
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I'm not claiming to be an expert on this, and this is probably the first answer I've posted where I'm hoping I'm wrong... but I did find this:

Quora: How can I resize an exFat partition under Windows (or Mac), without losing data?

As far as I can tell this is not possible. Neither Mac or Windows' built-in disk partition utilities support this and I've not been able to find any external tools that do either.

(Quoted material is from 2012, so advances could have been made since then.)

To further respond to the comment made from SecurityMatt's answer, I don't think exFAT was really designed to be a very "modern" filesystem filled with modern design features. It was designed to be more modern than FAT32, by supporting larger partition sizes. It was basically Microsoft's answer to some limitation(s) that FAT had, and an opportunity for Microsoft to strengthen its claim on owning the intellectual property of a file format, by having a new file format created during a time when Microsoft has learned to be more clear about who owns the technology. I believe Microsoft intended to market exFAT for scenarios where low overhead is probably more desirable, such as little memory cards like SD cards (or, more applicably, either SDHC or SDXC cards). I don't believe exFAT was ever intended to be competing with NTFS by having lots of new/modern features.

Again, I haven't researched this as heavily as some other operating systems, and I could easily be out of date about some of the specifics. Hopefully some piece of this answer is somewhat helpful.

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    exFAT is a terrible file system technically.
    – neverMind9
    Feb 11, 2018 at 23:58
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    Yes, exFAT and FAT in general is terrible. But this doesn't really answer the question. Especially since the answer happens to be "Yes", even if the tools that come with the OS can't do it. I can boot a Linux distribution off of a USB stick and the partitioning utilities there can do it without a problem. Apr 29, 2018 at 21:26
  • @Omnifarious : The question was answered. (The answer is the quoted part.) The answer was "No". Now, if you disagree with that answer because you find a solution, great! (I wrote this answer in 2015. I see that in 2017 someone posted an answer that mentions some software that serves as a solution.) However, even if you disagree with that answer (and I might disagree with it now, too), I'd say it is wrong to say that this "answer" did not answer the question. It did provide an answer, even if that old answer is not currently accurate due to some newer developments.
    – TOOGAM
    Apr 30, 2018 at 14:08
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    Actually, on reading more, I discovered I was wrong (sorry about that). But ExFAT is more appropriately understood as a typical Microsoft attempt to drive competitors out of an industry. It's a very proprietary (lots of patents) filesystem that's designed for efficiency on SSDs. Partition resizing is hard to come by because you risk being sued to pieces by Microsoft if you do it. Aug 15, 2018 at 23:06
  • What's the best file system for both Mac + Ubuntu? I think this is what made me chose ExFat to begin with. Oct 25, 2021 at 22:45
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I thought you could use gparted and a Linux distribution to do this. I was very wrong. It turns out that ExFAT is an evil, inappropriately named (because it, in fact, has nothing to do with FAT) technology that's heavily proprietary. IMHO, people should boycott any drive manufacturer who ships with it by default because you're basically being forced to pay Microsoft for the 'privilege' of having them make predatory use of IP law to destroy competitors.

And if you're going to be engaging in a transaction like that, they should be paying you to use such a drive.

Edit: This has changed. Microsoft opened up the patents.

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    This is not quite so true any longer, exfat has been opened up. May 2, 2022 at 2:40
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    How does it answer the question? Post your rants as comments.
    – ᄂ ᄀ
    Mar 10, 2023 at 13:02
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Since it is not possible to resize it I solved it like this:

  1. Backed up the files
  2. Formatted to NTFS (using the Disk Manager)
  3. Resized NTFS
  4. Created new FAT32 Volume (since that was why I wanted to shrink it)
  5. Formatted to exFat (on the Disk Manager)
  6. Downloaded the files back into the HDD
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  • This is the gist of my solution too. May 16, 2016 at 3:02
  • PS: for backing up/copying large chunks of data, and/or lots of files, FreeFileSync (freefilesync.org) is hands-down the best free tool to use! May 16, 2016 at 3:36
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FAT does not support shrinking. NTFS is the first Microsoft filesystem which supports dynamically reducing the size of the partition on disk.

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    Does the exFAT documentation explicitly state this? That's pretty lacking in foresight for what is supposed to be a modern file system.
    – Fake Name
    Feb 24, 2012 at 0:51
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    FAT can definitely support resizing. The question didn't ask about only internal tools: the question was, "Is there any way"? Third party tools, like PartEd, would seem to be fair game.
    – TOOGAM
    Oct 8, 2015 at 17:37
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    Are we talking FAT or exFAT here?
    – Christian
    Nov 27, 2015 at 18:06
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    Have you ever used a partitioning tool? Most modern ones can freely resize common file systems without problem
    – phuclv
    Aug 12, 2016 at 9:47

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