Ntfs Read Write For Mac

Unfortunately, macOS cannot write to NTFS drives by default. This makes working between operating systems far more difficult, requiring either a compatible disk format like ExFAT or tools that allow macOS to write to NTFS drives. Your Mac can read NTFS drives, transferring content from the drives to another place, but it cannot write to NTFS. Hey, congrats on the new Mac. Welcome to the cult community! Unfortunately, there is no safe solution for providing OS X with NTFS read-write support. I have seen instances of filesystem corruption resulting in data loss with each NTFS-3g, Tuxera NTFS, and Paragon NTFS.

One of the most usual problems encountered in file transfer between Mac and PC using a disk has something to do with disk format. Windows natively support the FAT and NTFS files systems, while Mac uses Apple File System and macOS Extended as the default file system. It’s well-known that Apple macOS has limited support for hard drives formatted in NTFS. When you insert an NTFS external drive in your Mac, you can only read from but not to write to the drive. In other words, you can only open and view all the files on an NTFS disk, but you can’t change them in any way, nor can you copy new files to NTFS format disks.

Wondering how to write to NTFS drives? The following will show you three solutions in detail.

Solution 1: Use paid NTFS drivers

The easiest way to bridge the gap between formats is to use third-party software. There are various apps available online that have been developed for this incompatibility issue. Some are free, but they may be difficult to set up and less reliable. So we highly recommend paid ones as they are safer and require any computer skills.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is the fastest NTFS driver I have ever used. It gives your Mac the ability to read and write to NTFS drives. With the software, you can delete, rename, add files and folders on NTFS formatted drives on macOS Catalina and earlier. It delivers blazing-fast read-write access to NTFS hard drives with a speed of up to six times more that of other competitors.

The program can also be used as a disk manager that enables you to unmount, erase, check and repair NTFS disks within one click. Besides handling NTFS drives, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac also impress you by formatting FA32/exFAT/HFS+/APFS drives to NTFS.

iboysoft-NTFS-for-mac-Catalina

Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac computer.

Step 2: Plug the NTFS drives on your Mac. Once the drive is detected, a Finder window with its content will pop out. Then you can read and write to NTFS drives as you wish.

Solution 2: Use free NTFS drivers

FUSE for macOS is the most famous free NTFS driver that can let you extend the list of file systems handled by your computer. Once installed, it automatically mounts NTFS drives on Mac in read-write mode.

Note: this method will be very technical and tedious. During the process, you have to temporarily disable System Integrity Protection that is a risk for your operating system.

Step 1: Download FUSE for macOS from https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/releases

Step 2: Download and install Xcode command-line tools.

  • Open a Terminal window from Finder > Applications > Utilities and run the following command:

Xcode-select –install

  • Click “Install” when you’re prompted to install the tools. Follow the wizard to complete the installation process.

install-Xcode

Step 3: Download and install HomeBrew.

  1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
  2. Copy and paste the command line (Provide your password when prompt):

Step 4: Install NTFS-3G for Mac. Copy and paste the following command line, then hit Enter.

Step 5: Disable SIP (System Integrity Protection). If you want to automatically mount NTFS drives in read-write mode.

  1. Enter into Recovery Mode. Restart your Mac and press Command+R while it’s booting.
  2. Launch Terminal from the utility menu in Recovery Mode.
  3. Type in the command line and hit Enter.

csrutil disable

disable-sip

  1. After your Mac successfully disabled SIP, you need to restart the machine.

Step 6: Read and write to NTFS drives.

Ntfs Read Write For Mac
  1. Open Terminal again.
  2. Copy and paste the following command line and hit Enter:

Step 7: Re-enable SIP. To ensure the security of your Mac, you should enable SIP after the above operations. Hold Command+R while rebooting your computer. Then launch Terminal in Recovery Mode and run csrutil enable.

Solution 3: Enable NTFS drive write support natively

Actually, NTFS write access can be enabled natively by running some command line. But this solution is unsupported officially by Apple, which may work unstably and cause data corruption. Please back up your important data first. Within this in mind, let’s proceed.

Step 1: Connect an NTFS drive to your Apple computer.

Step 2: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal and type in the following command: (Enter your password when prompt)

sudo nano /etc/fstab

apple-NTFS-write-support-step-2

Step 3: You will see the fstab file that is blank. Then enter the following command (Remember to replace “VOLUME_NAME” to the name of your NTFS volume):

LABEL=VOLUME_NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

apple-ntfs-write-support-step

Step5: Reconnect the NTFS drive to your Mac. You will notice the drive does not show in the Finder or desktop.

Step 6: Select “Go” and choose “Go to Folder” from the top left Finder menu.

Step 7: Type in /Volumes and hit Enter.

apple-ntfs-write-support-step

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Conclusion

This article has introduced you three general options to write to NTFS drives – free NTFS drivers, paid NTFS for drivers, and Apple experimental NTFS-write support. Free and open-source NTFS drivers for Mac take a bit of work to install and they are slower than paid ones. It’s full of risk to Apple experimental NTFS-write support as this method is not stable. Therefore, using paid NTFS for Mac apps like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is the easiest way to read/write to NTFS drives on Mac. This software really surprises me for its fast speed in reading and writing to NTFS drives.

In this article, I am going to guide you on How to Read and Write to NTFS Drives on a Mac with NTFS for Mac? As the default Microsoft Windows disk format, NTFS format is the most commonly used format in the world, having a fast access speed and a large volume size. However, macOS only gives read permissions to users rather than write permissions because of legal issues. That means you cannot add, delete, modify, or alter files on NTFS drives.

If you do a quick Google search about “how to write to NTFS drives” In Google, you will be suggested to choose one of the following options:

  • Commercial third-party NTFS drivers – paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac in the market are easy to install and have better performance than free solutions.
  • Free NTFS drivers – open-source NTFS drivers are so complicated to install and operate, which require people to run command lines.
  • Enable Apple’s experimental NTFS write support – we don’t recommend this method as it is quite technical and not officially supported by Apple.

As you can see, the first two methods are so tedious if you frequently need to write to an NTFS drive. Moreover, it is possible that you would face data loss disasters during trying out them. Thus, we highly recommend using a third-party NTFS driver, which is definitely the most reliable and safe way to write to NTFS drives.

Use the Best Paid NTFS Driver: iBoysoft NTFS for Mac

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is one of the best NTFS drivers that provides blazing fast, unlimited read and write access to NTFS hard drives, external hard drives, SD cards, memory cards, USB flash drives, CF cards, etc. It guarantees you stable and fast files transferring speeds between Macs and NTFS drives while keeping your data intact. In our testing, the software does so up to six times faster than the competitors.

In addition, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac also works as a driver manager that can be used to view disk information, check integrity, repair corrupted volumes, unmount and erase a disk. You can quickly manage your connected disks by clicking the “Disk Management” option from the menu bar. Then you will see all physical and virtual volumes attached to your Mac. Choose one of the disks and then proceed to operate.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is one of few NTFS for Mac software that is fully compatible with the latest macOS 10.15 Catalina. It also runs perfectly on macOS 10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8.

How to Write to an NTFS Drive on Mac with NTFS for Mac?

Step 1: Free download iBoysoft NTFS for Mac and follow the wizard to install the software.

Step 2: Connect your NTFS drive to the Mac. When the drive is detected, it will be automatically mounted and open in Finder. After that, you can do everything with the files and folders it contains.

Super-simple, huh?

Ntfs for mac free

Use a Free NTFS Driver – Fuse for macOS

Fuse for macOS is the best open-source command-line program for writing to NTFS drives in macOS. But it is a command-line program and needs a good bit of work to install.

Step 1: Download FUSE for macOS from https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/releases

Step 2: Download and install Xcode command-line tools.

  1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
  2. Copy and paste this command: xcode-select –install
  3. Click Install when the dialogue appears. Click Agree when theLicense Agreement appears. Once that’s done proceed to step 3.

Step 3: Download and install HomeBrew.

  1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
  2. Copy and paste the command line:

/usr/bin/ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)”

Step 4: Install NTFS-3G for Mac. Copy and paste the following command line, then hit Enter.

brew install Ntfs-3g

Mac Write To Ntfs

Step 5: Disable SIP (System Integrity Protection). If you want to automatically mount NTFS drives in read-write mode, you need to disable SIP.

  1. Reboot your Mac and hold Command+R while it’s booting. The computer will boot into Recovery Mode.
  2. In Recovery Mode, open Terminal from the Utilities menu.
  3. Type in the command line: csrutil disable and hit Enter.
  4. Restart the Mac.

Step 6: Read and write to NTFS drives.

  1. Open Terminal again.
  2. Type in the following command line and hit Enter:

sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.original

sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs

Lastly, it’s highly recommended to re-enable SIP. Reboot your Mac and hold Command+R while it’s booting. Then launch a Terminal in Recovery Mode and run csrutil enable.

Enable Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support

NTFS write access can be natively enabled by running command lines. But please note that this solution is unstable and may not work properly. You must prepare for data corruption as well as data loss problems.

With this in mind, let’s proceed:

Step 1: Connect an NTFS drive on your Mac computer. Take note of the volume name as you’ll need it later.

Step 2: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal to launch Terminal.

Step 3: Type in the following command lines and hit Enter. This will open the fstab file that is blank by default. (Type in the admin password if asked.)
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Step 4: Enter the following command. (Replace the VOLUME_NAME to the name of your NTFS drive or volume.)

LABEL=VOLUME_NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

Step 5: Repeat Step 3 – 4 if you have multiple NTFS drives you want to write to. Then press Ctrl+O to save the file after you’re done, and then press Ctrl+X to exit.

Step 6: Eject the NTFS drive and connect it to your Mac again.

Step 7: You will notice the drive doesn’t appear in the Finder. Click on Go at the top left menu bar at desktop and choose Go to Finder.

Step 8: Enter /Volumes and click the Go button. Locate the NTFS volume and access it.

To undo this change later, just repeat Step 2 to load the /etc/fstab file. Delete the entries you added for each drive, save your changes and then exit.

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Final Thoughts

Ntfs For Mac Free

To write to an NTFS drive on Mac, you can either reformat the disk to FAT or enable Apple experimental NTFS-writing support. But you will find the above two methods too much of a hassle. They are not suitable for people who have multiple NTFS drives with tons of data. So, the easiest and safest way is to use a third-party app helping you mount NTFS drives in read-write mode.

So, I hope you got everything about How to Read and Write to NTFS Drives on a Mac with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. So, if you get any confusion or question then feel free to ask me in the comment box.