How to Save Photos on a MacBook Air to an SD Card

Secure Digital, or SD cards, are recognized by Mac computers as USB storage devices. Saving or storing pictures on your SD card is an easy process due to their quick transfer speeds and versatility. When mounted properly, your MacBook Air reads SD cards exactly like an external USB drive, so you should be able to drag and drop files directly onto the card via Finder. Please note that if your SD card was originally formatted on a PC, or if it is a generic card bought pre-formatted, you will need to reformat it for a Mac OS Extended file system using Disk Utility.

Formatting Your SD Card With Disk Utility

Insert your SD card into your MacBook Air's SD slot.

Open a new Finder window and navigate to Applications. Double-click your "Utilities" folder and open "Disk Utility."

Highlight your SD card's name on the left side of the Disk Utility screen.

Click the "Erase" tab near the top of Disk Utility. Click the "Format" drop-down box and select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)."

Enter your drive's name in the "Name" field, if necessary, and click "Erase." Confirm your selection in the next window and wait for the reformatting process to complete.

Transferring Photos to Your SD Card

Restart your computer. Insert your SD card into the SD card slot.

Open a new Finder window. Locate and highlight the photos you want saved to your SD card. Select multiple photos adjacent to one another by holding down "Shift," or select multiple non-adjacent photos by holding down "Command."

Drag and drop your highlighted photos into the SD card's icon on the left side of the Finder window and wait for them to copy.