how to save my picture from mac to external hard drive

How-To: Choose the best external hard drive for your Mac (or iOS ...

You will need to purchase an external hard drive - WD is a good choice

Either get it for the Mac - somewhat costlier OR

Get a generic one and use the disk utility to format it to Mac OS (Journaled) - ask for instructions if you need to

Once the drive is ready - you can use Time Machine to backup your entire drive and also create folders on that drive to move your pictures into

Some of our posters advise two independent back ups if one should fail - not a bad idea

Or if photos are all you want to backup - also look at Google Photos or Upthere

Assuming you are using iPhoto or Photos to catalog your pictures, all you need to do is select the picture(s) and then under the File menu select Export. You’ll have the chance to make a couple decisions such as what size etc. Then the file selector will appear so you can choose where to save it. Select your external drive and save.

Note: An even easier way is to drag the photo from the program onto the external drive but that gives you less control over the pictures export size etc.

Also, while I’ve found ManShinha’s advice to be pretty good since he’s shown up here, I have to disagree with his recommendation of Western Digital external drives. WD’s use of proprietary chipsets and cheap components result in external drives that are subpar compared to other products. In general I prefer to purchase enclosures and bare drives to create my own external drive and one of my favorite companies for components is OWC which also sells complete external drives. I’ve also been satisfied with Toshiba and LaCie drives for the most part.

dwb wrote:

Also, while I’ve found ManSinha’s advice to be pretty good since he’s shown up here, I have to disagree with his recommendation of Western Digital external drives. WD’s use of proprietary chipsets and cheap components result in external drives that are subpar compared to other products. In general I prefer to purchase enclosures and bare drives to create my own external drive and one of my favorite companies for components is OWC which also sells complete external drives. I’ve also been satisfied with Toshiba and LaCie drives for the most part.

Umm - no presumptions please 😝

And duly noted - but I found some less than flattering reviews about LaCie as well?

I personally use a Toshiba 3 TB external HD plugged into TM whenever I work from home - has stood up pretty well (FWIW)