How to Troubleshoot SD Card Not Showing Up on Mac?

Mac users like you sometimes may find the SD card not showing up on Mac. As a result, you can’t open the SD card for use. Today we’ll troubleshoot three most-frequently seen situations, including SD card not showing up on Mac desktop, SD card not showing up in Finder, and SD card found in Disk Utility but not mounting.

How to fix the SD card not seen on Mac desktop?

By default, your Mac will automatically show all detected external devices, which include your SD card on desktop. However, sometimes the setting might be accidentally changed so that it doesn’t show the external drives. You can manually adjust the settings following the below instructions.

1. Click on the Finder at the top menu of your Mac and choose Preferences.

2. Click on the General tab.

3. Check the External disks option.

4. Check if you can see the SD card on the Mac desktop.

How to fix the SD card not showing up in Finder?

This situation is pretty much the same as the above one. All attached and detected external hard drives are ought to show up in Finder. If not, check the settings. Here’s how.

1. Click on the Finder at the upper left of your Mac and choose Preferences.

2. Click on the Sidebar tab.

3. Check External disks option under Locations so that you can locate the SD card on Mac’s Finder.

4. Launch the Finder again and check if you can find the SD card showing up in the Finder sidebar. If you still can’t find your SD card, maybe it’s hidden by accident.

• Connect your SD card with Mac properly. Make sure the connection is tight.
• Open the Finder by clicking the smiley face on the desktop.
• Find Locations in the left sidebar. If there are no storage devices listed, it means your SD card could be hidden in the Finder.
• Point your mouse at the Locations, and then click Show. Then your SD card will show up, and the option will become Hide.

Now your SD card should appear in the Finder. Still, chances are you can either find the SD card on the desktop or the Finder. Maybe you can go to Disk Utility to check. If the SD card lies safe and sound in Disk Utility, but you can’t mount it, what can you do?

How to fix the SD card showing up in Disk Utility but not mounting?

The unmounted SD card can also result in an SD card not showing up on Mac. To fix this issue, we offer three solutions for you.

Solution 1: Manually mount the SD card

Automatically, your Mac will mount the SD card. But accidents always happen, and you can manually mount the SD card by right-clicking on it and choosing the Mount icon beside it. Or you can select the memory card in Disk Utility and click Mount on the top of the menu. How’s it going now? If you can’t mount it manually, it means the SD card might be corrupted and needs to be repaired, or even formatted.

Solution 2: Repair the corrupted SD card

You can use the Apple built-in repair tool, First Aid, to fix your corrupted SD card. Follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to Launchpad and then Others. Select Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the unmountable SD card and click First Aid at the toolbar.

Now you can wait for the magic to be done. If you still have no luck in mounting your SD card, perhaps you can move to the next method.

Solution 3: Format your SD card

You can resort to this method when your SD card is too severely damaged to be repaired. However, formatting will erase all the original data on your SD card and write a new file system on it. Therefore, before making any move to your memory card, always remember to back up the files or restore the important data first! Then you are good to go.

Step 1: Go to Launchpad > Other > Disk Utility, launch it.

Step 2: Select the SD card at the left sidebar and click on the Erase button at the top.

Step 3: Give the SD card a name, file system, and scheme. We recommend exFAT or MS-DOS(FAT) as the file system.

Step 4: Click on the Erase button to format your SD card.

Once it’s done, you’ll get a fresh new well-functioning SD card. Then you can transfer your backups to it.