Help with moving files to flash drive please

[Zaft]

For the love of god someone help me.. I am trying to move pictures from my macbook air Mid 2011 (El Capitan to a flash drive.
It has been an utter annoyance.. I don't get why i cant just drag and drop like on windows, why do I have to go through that disaster of software called photos...

Maybe there is a different way?

 

[chabig]

You can drag and drop. Open Photos and select the ones you want to copy. Then drag them onto the flash drive icon or into the open flash drive window.

 

[Zaft]

You can drag and drop. Open Photos and select the ones you want to copy. Then drag them onto the flash drive icon or into the open flash drive window.

i tried this and the "do not enter" sign appears.

 

[chabig]

Then the flash drive may not be formatted for a Mac, or the files you are copying might be individually too large for the way the drive is formatted (FAT?) or the flash drive might be locked. You'll have to experiment a bit to figure it out. Try starting with one photo at a time, and proceed from there. It should work.

 

[KALLT]

Use the File > Export function in Photos.

 

[Zaft]

Then the flash drive may not be formatted for a Mac, or the files you are copying might be individually too large for the way the drive is formatted (FAT?) or the flash drive might be locked. You'll have to experiment a bit to figure it out. Try starting with one photo at a time, and proceed from there. It should work.

The drive is formatted as NTFS. I will do some more testing.

 

[CoastalOR]

The drive is formatted as NTFS. I will do some more testing.

The Mac OS can read NTFS format, but it can not write to it. You need to format the drive to exFat if you want to also use it with a windows machine or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if only using it with Macs. There are some 3rd party software that allow writing to NTFS formats with a Mac.

 

[Zaft]

The Mac OS can read NTFS format, but it can not write to it. You need to format the drive to exFat if you want to also use it with a windows machine or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if only using it with Macs. There are some 3rd party software that allow writing to NTFS formats with a Mac.

I didnt know that, thank you.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you are going to use that flash drive ONLY with Macs, you'd do much better to re-initialize it to HFS+ with journaling enabled...

 

[Zaft]

If you are going to use that flash drive ONLY with Macs, you'd do much better to re-initialize it to HFS+ with journaling enabled...

The flash drive currently has content on it. If I format it to HFS or FAT it will erase whats currently on it correct?

 

[Weaselboy]

The flash drive currently has content on it. If I format it to HFS or FAT it will erase whats currently on it correct?

Yes.