Samsung Galaxy S5 Guide

How to save photos to SD card on Galaxy S5?

Galaxy S5 supports up to 128GB  micro SD card

One of the advantages of Galaxy S5 is its expandable storage. You can use a micro SD card to expand the storage for your files.

Galaxy S5 supports up to 128GB micro SD card. So, you can save a lot of photos and videos without worrying about the storage.

By default, when Galaxy S5 detects a SD card, the new photos and videos will be saved to the SD card automatically instead of the phone internal storage (which is usually very limited) unless you change it.

How to  save photos to SD card on Galaxy S5?

As mentioned, after inserting the SD card, the camera app will automatically save photos and videos to the SD card. In other words, by default, you don’t need to set it up.

But sometimes, for whatever reasons, it may not work as expected.

So, you may have to manually set the photo and video storage location to save photos to SD card.

Step 1: Start Camera app.

Step 2: Tap Settings icon as shown below.

Step 3: Tap Storage location as shown below.

Current storage location for photos and videos is indicated in the icon as well. Device refers to phone internal storage. Memory card refers to micro SD card.

How_to_save_photos_to_SD_card on_Galaxy_S5

Step 4: Tap Memory card as shown above.

If you want to switch back to the internal storage, you can choose Device.

Step 5: Tap anywhere to return.

Step 6: Take photos or record videos as usual.

From now on, Galaxy S5 will save photos to the SD card unless you manually change the storage location.

Why are my photos saved to phone storage, not the SD card?

Sometimes, you may notice that Galaxy S5 saves photos to the internal storage, although you set the storage location as memory card (SD card).

When Galaxy S5 burst mode is used, the photos taken with burst mode will be always saved into the internal storage, not the SD card. This is not a bug. It is designed in this way so that burst mode works well in you Galaxy S5. You cannot change this.

Why my video quality is poor when saving to SD card?

Not all SD cards are created equal.

For micro SD  and SD cards, there is a speed rating for them.  For photos, most Class 6  is sufficient. Due to the small price difference, it is advised to get a class 10 micro SD card for your Galaxy S5.

But for full HD videos, you need a Class 10 micro SD card, preferably with a speed of 20MB/s or higher. For example, you may try this Samsung Micro SD card.

For UHD (4k) video, you need a Class 10 micro SD card with a speed of 45MB/s or higher. Otherwise, the video quality will be affected. To record UHD videos on Galaxy S5, you should get at least this SanDisk Extreme Micro SD card.

Here are some micro SD cards you may consider for your Galaxy S5.

Can you save photos to SD card on Galaxy S5?

If you have any questions or encounter any problems to save photos to SD card on Galaxy S5 or set the storage location on Galaxy S5, please leave a comment in the comment box below.

The community will try to find a solution for you

More how-to guides, tips and tricks for using Samsung Galaxy S5 are available at Samsung Galaxy S5 how-to guides page.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Linh says

    Recently, my pics will randomly show a gray box or band like going veritcally or horizontally across the pictures. Why is it doing this? Please help. I’ve had this phone only 2 months!

    Reply

  2. Joseph says

    When I want to save a picture like from Facebook, it didn’t store it on sd card automatically, why?

    Reply

  3. KC says

    I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 & whenever I download images from MMS messages is saves it to the phone instead of my SD card. I’ve searched and searched and found no way to change this. Help?

    Reply

  4. Jodi Glauber says

    My samsung microSD Card has been wiped out totally. The phone doesn’t even recognize there’s a card present. Same thing when i insert into laptop. Is there any way to recover. There are pix and videos of my dad before he passed away and of my pets before they died. Please advise.

    Reply

  8. Morgan Lea says

    I still am using my Galaxy S5 in 2018…the storage icon is not longer available in the camera settings. Is there another way for me to manually set my phone so that pictures and videos get save to my SD Card?

    Reply

  10. L says

    To everyone who can’t find the location option in their settings menu, I figured it out! The menu scrolls, and I finally found that setting near the bottom on my phone.

    Hope that helps!

    Reply

  11. Annette says

    I have a 32GB SD card in phone. When going to camera settings I am not given an option of saving photos to SD card. Why is this happening?

    Reply

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