I need to move pictures from iMac air to external drive,

Hi tupelo080135,

Can you provide us with a little more information about your issue? Are the pictures currently in an iPhoto or Photos Library? Or were they imported directly to your Pictures folder? If they are not contained in a library, you can use the Finder application to drag the photos from your iMac to an external drive. But first, the external drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled.). Confirm you can open the pictures from the external drive before deleting them from your iMac.

If the pictures are in a Photos or iPhoto library, you can export them to a folder on the external drive.

Here is some general information for both scenarios:

Format external drives to Mac OS Extended

Mac Basics: The Finder organizes all of your files

Photos Help - Export photos, videos, and slideshows

Take care,

Hi tupelo080135,

Thanks for the update. So it sounds like you just dragged the pictures which were in a folder to your external drive to make a copy of them. If the external drive was used with "my last pc" do you mean a Windows computer or a Mac? Make sure the external drive is formatted for Mac OS Extended if you are working with Mac computers now. Just right-click or Control-click on the external drive in Finder and choose "Get Info" to be sure. If the drive is not formatted for Mac, you may need to get a second external drive, as formatting a drive will erase its contents.

Best,

Hi tupelo080135,

It looks like your external drive is formatted correctly, so I'm not sure why dragging the folder that contains the pictures is not working for you. Have you tried exporting the files from your iPhoto library? At this point, you may want to contact on of our technical advisors so they can delve into this a little further for you. They have tools like screen-sharing that can help with this. Click here to initiate that support.

Best,