newfs_apfs(8) BSD System Manager's Manual newfs_apfs(8)
NAME
newfs_apfs -- construct a new APFS volume
SYNOPSIS
newfs_apfs [-o options] [-i]
[-s volume-size | -q volume-quota -r volume-reserve]
[-v volume-name] [-E | -P] [-R role] special
newfs_apfs -C [-o options] [-i] special
newfs_apfs -A [-o options] [-i]
[-s volume-size | -q volume-quota -r volume-reserve]
[-v volume-name] [-E | -P] [-R role] special
newfs_apfs [-o options] [-i]
[-s volume-size | -q volume-quota -r volume-reserve]
[-v volume-name] [-E | -P] [-R role] special
DESCRIPTION
The newfs_apfs command creates a new APFS container on the device and/or
adds a new APFS volume to a container.
The first, more traditional, form of newfs_apfs formats the given special
as a container with a single volume inside it. The second form creates a
container only, with no volumes. The third form is used to non-
destructively add additional volumes inside an existing container. The
fourth form reformats an existing volume by effectively deleting and re-
creating it; in this usage (only) special indicates a volume inside the
container.
The special parameter should be the path to a disk device node, such as
/dev/disk1s2, although can be specified as simply disk1s2.
The options are as follows:
-o options Additional (undocumented) formatting options.
-i Creates a case-insensitive volume. This is the default
on macOS.
-e Creates a case-sensitive volume.
-U uid The UID of the root volume. Defaults to current UID.
-G uid The GID of the root volume. Defaults to current GID.
-q volume-quota Places a quota, or upper limit, on the size of the
volume. If specified then no more than this much
space will be used for its content, even if there is
additional free space in the container; however it is
not guaranteed that the entire quota will always be
available. By default a volume has no assigned quota.
-r volume-reserve Reserves an amount of space for this volume. If
specified it is guaranteed that at least this much
space will be available for its content; the volume
may also grow beyond this size (up to its quota limit,
if any) if additional free space in the container. By
default a volume has no assigned reserve.
-s volume-size The fixed size of the volume. If specified then the
volume is guaranteed that exactly this much space will
be available for its content. Setting -s is
equivalant to setting both -q and -r to that same
value. If not specified then the available space is
dynamic and determined by the usage of other volumes
within the same container (space-sharing).
-v volume-name The name of the volume. The default is "untitled".
-A Add a volume to an existing container. There is a
limit to the number of volumes that may reside inside
a container.
-C Create a container only, with no volume. newfs_apfs
-A may be used later to format volumes inside that
container.
-E Enable volume encryption. The volume metadata is also
encrypted.
-F special Format as a Fusion device (with the secondary device
specified here).
-R role Set the OS "role" of the volume within the container.
The role may be certain valid combinations of the
following characters:
b PreBoot - will contain information used to help
boot System volumes
u User - will contain home directory and other
user data
s System - will contain a bootable system
r Recovery - will contain the RecoveryOS
v VM - will contain swapfiles and hibernate image
DIAGNOSTICS
The newfs_apfs utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
The following formats a new container and a volume named "Macintosh" on
the /dev/disk1s2 device:
newfs_apfs -v Macintosh disk1s2
And then this adds another volume, named "Data" with a fixed size of 100
GB, to that container:
newfs_apfs -v Data -s 100g -A disk1s2
SEE ALSO
mount_apfs(8)
HISTORY
The newfs_apfs utility first appeared in OS X 10.12.
Mac OS X September 15, 2015 Mac OS X
Mac OS X 10.13.1 - Generated Fri Nov 10 18:14:20 CST 2017