Windows and macOS support exFAT out of the box. However, Ubuntu and some Linux distributions do not support the file systems, at least not out of the box. If you need to include exFAT support on Ubuntu, you will have to install additional packages. Microsoft developed the exFAT file system to replace the older 32-bit (FAT32) file system which has lots of limitations, including not supporting files larger than 4GB in size. exFAT was designed specifically to provide support for larger devices and files that the older version of the file system couldn’t support. Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/$USER/USB: unknown file system ‘exfat’ To resolve this error follow the steps below:
Install Required exFAT Support Packages
Chances are you have an external device formatted with exFAT file systems. To mount and use exFAT devices, you must run the commands below to install FUSE exFAT, a tool that provides exFAT support on Unix-like systems, including Ubuntu. Once the packages above have been installed, continue below to mount the drive.
Mount exFAT External Devices
In step one, you installed packages that will allow you to mount exFAT devices. Now that the packages are installed, insert the external device that is formatted with exFAT technology. If the device doesn’t automatically mount, reboot and tries again. That should be it! Congratulations! You have learned how to use Microsoft exFAT devices on Ubuntu Linux. You may also like the post below:
