The SD card should appear in the section External on the left: select it.In the window of the Disk Utility, Press the sight icon and select Show all devices.You can also press Cmd + Space and write Disk utility. Open the Disk Utility through folder Launchpad in your Dock.If you are using a USB card reader, connect it to an available USB port on your Mac. To format an SD card on Mac using Disk Utility: You can also use the tool to format USB flash drives, external hard drives, or internal drive partitions. You don’t need any special software to format an SD card on your Mac as you can use the built-in application Disk Utility.ĭisk Utility allows you to safely format SD cards on your Mac. How to format an SD card on Mac using Disk Utility The best method is to use the Disk Utility application, but there are third-party alternatives such as SD Card Formatter. Once you’ve determined the file system you need, you can start formatting your SD card. Cards larger than 32GB need the file system exFAT. For SD cards less than 32GB, please use the file system FAT32. Then you have to know which file system to use.

If your Mac doesn’t have a built-in card reader, you’ll have to buy one. Some Macs have them, but many don’t.įortunately, SD card readers are not expensive.

Before formatting SD cards on Macīefore formatting an SD card in macOS, you will have to make sure you have a card reader.

If you are not sure how to format an SD card on Mac and want to do it safely, please follow these steps. However, there are risks, and you could lose your data or corrupt your SD card if you don’t take precautions. It also allows you to change the file system of an SD card (new or old), allowing other devices to read and write to it, including Macs. Did you buy a new SD card or are you just reusing a spare one? It may be a good idea to format it first.įormatting an SD card makes a clean slate, removing any trace of old files.

How to format sd card in mac