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Do I need to reformat my SD card to use it on Mac?

Hey everyone, I'm going to buy a MacBook Pro tomorrow and I'm switching from Windows to Mac for the first time I need to check if I can be ok on Mac. The thing I want to know is if should I reformat my camera memory card(it's a regular SD card that I use in my Canon camera) to be able to use it on Mac. Because I needed to reformat my external hard drive (changed to exFat) to use it on Mac and I wanted to know if I should do the same for the SD card. Thank you so much!

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Anna Yuan

Anna Yuan

Answered on Monday, February 19, 2024

First, check what the file system of your Canon camera is. Generally speaking, the camera memory card should be formatted as MS-DOS, FAT32, or exFAT at first. All versions of Mac OS X such as Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and newer macOS such as Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, and Ventura can read-write the FAT/ FAT32/ exFAT file system without installing any additional driver or software.

In another word, if your SD card is FAT/FAT32/exFAT formatted, you don't need to format it and it can be used and accessed successfully in macOS. However, if you're using an NTFS-formatted SD card, you can only read it on your Mac or MacBook but you can't write it.

To mount an NTFS-formatted SD card in read-write mode on Mac, you can choose to format it into a macOS-compatible format, such as FAT, FAT32, exFAT, HFS+, and APFS. However, reformatting will wipe all the data on this SD card. If you want to enable NTFS volume read-write permission on Mac without formatting, then an NTFS or Mac mounter can help you.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a powerful mounter to mount and unmount your NTFS volume in Mac's desktop, Finder, and Disk Utility. It is compatible with macOS 13/12/11/10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and works smoothly on M1 and M2 Macs. As a Mac NTFS reader, it allows you to view and copy files from an NTFS formatted SD card on Mac. You can simply download it and enjoy its function now.

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