Formatting a portable SSD for use only with a MAC

chocmintcookie wrote:

Can I format a portable SSD for use only with a MAC to file system APFS if the (brand new) SSD is has a File System of ExFat (as per info on the drive)

Use Disk Utility to format the drive at the device level.

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Yes.

I should add, that's assuming it's not one of the fake high capacity SSDs sold by Amazon and others.

You're welcome.