Abstract: Abstract: A moisture content of macadamia nuts needs to be reduced from the harvested approximately 25% to 5% or less for efficient storage and processing. Drying strategy can be widely used to produce macadamia nuts, while detecting the moisture change in real time. In this study, Low-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (LF- NMR) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques were used to investigate the water conditions and distribution during drying. A relationship between moisture content and total signal amplitude of LF- NMR was established to systematically analyze the dry characteristics of macadamia nuts during drying. The results showed that the high drying rate and short time can be achieved to reach the constant weight for the macadamia nuts as the increase of temperature. The drying rate was high in the early stage (0 - 36 h), and decreased rapidly during a whole drying processing. Specifically, the drying rate decreased slowly in the middle stage (36 - 72 h), and then become constant in the later stage (72 h to the end), even close to 0. The high initial drying temperature can be easier to cause the cracking of the macadamia nuts' shell. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively evaluate the influence of various drying methods on quality indexes, the change of macadamia nuts' shell and commodity value. After evaluation, the variable temperature drying was better than the other four drying methods, where the specific process was: 30 ℃ 2 d → 38 ℃ 2 d → 45 ℃ to the end. MRI analysis revealed that the internal moisture distribution of macadamia nuts was uneven, and the water diffused outwards during the drying process. The water on the surface of macadamia nuts evaporated fast as the drying time increased. This change can cause a low moisture content on the surface, while a high moisture content inside the macadamia nuts. In any case, the overall moisture content of macadamia nuts can decrease for the purpose of drying, because the water inside the macadamia nuts can diffuse fast to the surface due to the presence of a water gradient. There were three states of water in macadamia nuts: free water, semi-bound water, and bound water. The content and state of three kinds of water indicated different changes during the drying process. Compared with bound water, free water and semi-bound water were easier to evaporate in the process of macadamia nuts drying. In addition, the drying rate also decreased rapidly with the decrease content of free water and bound water within 0 - 24 h. The bound water evaporated fast and the content of bound water was reduced at the early stage of drying. In the later stage of drying, the drying shrinkage made the semi-bound water closely bound with macromolecules, part of which was converted into bound water, indicating the increase in the content of bound water. The absorption peak shifted to the left because the water with weak binding force in macadamia nuts was dispersed, whereas the remaining water showed relatively strong binding force, with the increase of drying time. There was an obvious linear relationship between the moisture content of macadamia nuts and the total signal amplitude of the low-field nuclear magnetic resonance. The coefficient of determination R2 was 0.904, indicating good predictability. The findings demonstrated that the LF-NMR can be served as a rapid and noninvasive method to accurately predict the water content of macadamia nuts during drying process.