Format SD Card Mac – How to Format SD Card on Mac

Format SD Card Mac – It has to be formatted before you can use an SD or microSD card (many come pre-formatted out of the box). It is important to use the appropriate file system to format it with and maintain it consistent with SD Association specifications, which minimizes the chance that your camera may have issues with it.

Format SD Card Mac - How to Format SD Card on Mac

Format SD Card Mac – How to Format SD Card on Mac

So here’s a guide to formatting SD cards and microSD cards on Mac. First is the quick version; after that is a step-by-step guide in greater detail. And I have implemented an alternate solution utilizing the SD card formatter of the SD Association.

Connect your SD card to your Mac:

There are different ways to do this. Some Macs come with an SD slot built-in. You can insert the SD card directly into it if you have one of those. If you are using a microSD card, first put the microSD card in an SD adapter cartridge (it probably came with one) and then put it in your computer’s SD slot. A USB SD card reader can also be used.

Open Disk Utility App:

Disk Utility is part of the operating framework for Mac OS X, meaning you don’t have to buy or update it. It can be found under the Utilities subfolder (Software > Tools > Disk Utility) in the Software group. And you can scan for it using Spotlight (the magnifying glass icon at the top right of your screen) by clicking on the icon and then entering “Disk utility”.

Identify Your SD Card:

On the left side of the screen of the Disk Utility is a list of the different drives in and connected to your Mac. So, it will display both the internal drive of your Mac and external drives. The SD card will appear in the segment External.

If it was not previously formatted, it can have a name like “NO NAME” or “UNTITLED” Clicking on it will show you how much room there is. Make sure it suits what you’re expecting – that is, if you’re inserting a 64 GB SD card, make sure the capacity shows up at or near 64 GB. Instead, if you see anything like 1 TB, you picked the wrong drive from the list.

Choose Erase Function:

Choose Delete from the list of functions at the end. You should receive a popup warning that you are about to delete anything on your card.

Enter SD Card Name:

You may assign a name to the card inside the Name area. It is an optional step – it will work just fine if you leave it as NO NAME or UNTITLED – it’s just a convenience problem to show a nice name when viewing it in Finder, for example, or to make sure that you import it from the appropriate card when you ingest photos into Lightroom.

Keep the name short and simple – they will reject any long names or special characters. Perhaps for example anything like SDCARD1 or GoPro.

Choose the Filesystem Format:

You have many choices under the drop-down menu on Shape. The only ones we care for here are MS-DOS (FAT32) and ExFAT. What to select depends on which size you use storage cards. If your SD card is larger than or 64 GB, pick ExFAT. If you have a 32 GB SD card or smaller, select MS-DOS (FAT32).

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Conclusion

It will say that it is unmounted and then, after a few moments (or maybe a little longer), you should get a message that the process is complete.

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