What is the best, easiest, preferably cheapest way to make OS X write to NTFS-formatted drives in Mac OS X?
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2If that NTFS filestore happens to be a Seagate harddrive, then use their free version of the Paragon NTFS Drivers (for OSX 10.10+). – Dɑvïd Jan 17 '18 at 19:32
Updated at May 2015, with current solutions.
Free solutions
FUSE for OS X - Successor to MacFUSE
NTFS-3G
Requires a build from source for anything newer than 2010. Last "pre built" version linked from http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/ntfs-3g-for-mac-os-x-2010102.html You can build it from source using homebrew in the other answers.
Paid solutions
MacFuse is abandonware, and hasn't been updated since 2009.
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3Fuse for OS X and NTFS-3G must be installed together. Full installation is tricky on El Capitan: See my answer apple.stackexchange.com/a/213575/62697 – Cœur Oct 30 '15 at 23:26
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3I'm sorry, but this is nearly a link-only answer, so I've downvoted it. Currently both apple.stackexchange.com/questions/106589/… and apple.stackexchange.com/questions/152661/… are marked as a duplicate of this question, but unfortunately this (currently accepted) answer is not the highest quality in my opinion. – cubuspl42 Mar 27 '18 at 15:24
This answer is for latest compatibility for OS X 10.11 El Capitan, macOS 10.12 Sierra, macOS 10.13 High Sierra, macOS 10.14 Mojave.
Install latest osxfuse (3.x.x) from GitHub. Or install it with Homebrew as follow:
brew cask install osxfuse
Install latest NTFS-3G with Homebrew as follow:
brew install ntfs-3g
Auto-mount NTFS volumes in read-write mode:
Link NTFS-3G to boot after temporary disabling System Integrity Protection, as follow:
[reboot by holding CMD+R to get in recovery mode]
csrutil disable
[reboot normally]
sudo mount -uw / sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.original sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs
[reboot by holding CMD+R to get in recovery mode]
csrutil enable
[reboot normally]
You will need to re-link manually (step 3) each year when you upgrade macOS (10.11 → 10.12 → 10.13 → 10.14 → ...)
Additional steps if solution does not work:
try to install ntfs-3g again
brew install ntfs-3g
it warns that it installed but not linked, try to link again:
brew link ntfs-3g
it fails and prints dry-run command which will show files to remove:
brew link --overwrite --dry-run ntfs-3g
remove these files with sudo ('Would remove:' is for English console)
brew link --overwrite --dry-run ntfs-3g | grep -vF 'Would remove:' | awk '{print $1}' | xargs sudo rm
try to link again and get permission error on creation /usr/local/share/doc/ntfs-3g. brew prevents running with sudo so prepare directory for README:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/doc/ntfs-3g sudo chmod a+w /usr/local/share/doc/ntfs-3g
run
brew link
again... success.reboot your Mac and allow system extension to load in System Preferences as error box suggests.
See also the following wiki page: https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G
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For linking issue with homebrew, maybe try stackoverflow.com/questions/29422345/installed-just-not-linked ; also, try brew uninstall ntfs-3g. – Cœur Dec 23 '15 at 14:04
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2Those who don't want to link it during startup and just wanna give it a go, you can try this. "After installing NTFS-3G you can manually mount NTFS volumes in read-write mode by executing the following commands in Terminal. Replace /dev/disk1s1 with the actual NTFS partition you want to mount. You can find the partition name using diskutil list. sudo mkdir /Volumes/NTFS sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/NTFS -olocal -oallow_other" From github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G – Sharukh Mastan Feb 5 '18 at 3:47
I tested this on Mountain lion and it is free and you don't need to reboot. It uses OS X's native NTFS drivers.
Plug-in your device
Write in Terminal
diskutil list
and look for IDENTIFIER where TYPE is Windows_NTFS.In this case it is
disk1s1
Then run the following:
diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s1 cd /Volumes mkdir Elements sudo mount -w -t ntfs -o rw,nobrowse /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/Elements open /Volumes/Elements
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3I tried this on 10.8.4 and a 10.8 VM, but I couldn't get it to work. I got an error like
Read-only file system
when I for example tried to runmkdir /Volumes/HD-HCU2/aa
. Is there some reason why you usednobrowse
? – Lri Jul 27 '13 at 18:57 -
You are creating the folder on wrong path. You should create the folder under
/Volumes
. – Codler Jul 28 '13 at 7:28 -
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5+1, Be aware that this feature is not complete and well-tested. It's not enabled by default for some reason. Worth mentioning that the force-write-enabled driver simply damaged an NTFS volume while I was playing with it. – fardjad Oct 25 '13 at 21:52
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2I've added a warning about this method not being safe. This old crappy Apple NTFS driver has been there forever, it's been known forever that it can be forced to be RW, and it's been known forever that it's not stable by any means. – cubuspl42 Mar 27 '18 at 15:32
The simplest solution would be to use MacFUSE and NTFS-3G for MacFUSE, though as of this post only Tuxera NTFS ( ~$35 USD) and PARAGON Software NTFS for OS X v.9.0 ($19.95 USD) support 10.7. You can grab the source for free from Tuxera for free, however.
As of OS X 10.6 you can natively enable NTFS support, though your mileage may vary. Follow this writeup by Mac OS X Hints if you're interested but I'd use the MacFUSE method over this one. Keep in mind that neither of these methods are fully supported.
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1Just to note—I've had some problems with NTFS-3G & Lion lately, which might be because the OS X binary is a bit outdated (2010.10.2 versus 2011.4.12) – Jari Keinänen Aug 8 '11 at 17:08
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1Paragon NTFS for Mac v9 IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH LION. Double-click the package gives "The operation couldn't be completed" – user17657 Jan 24 '12 at 3:42
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any disadvantages of using Tuxera NTFS for the new macbook pro retina ? – Render Jul 23 '12 at 13:29
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1
Here's how to do a one-time mount using ntfs-3g (coeur's answer but for one time use). This way doesn't require you to boot into safe mode or use csrutil at all.
NB: using ntfs-3g
this way is rumored to be "safer" for write access than the built-in ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse
mount option:
Install latest osxfuse (3.x.x) from https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/releases. Or install it from Homebrew with:
brew cask install osxfuse
Install latest NTFS-3GNTFS-3G from Homebrew (https://brew.sh/Homebrew), as follow:
brew install ntfs-3g
One time mount (replace disk1s1 with your values, discoverable by running a mount
command after inserting the disk, you'll see a line like
/dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/SomeNtfsDrive (ntfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners
) grab the disk1s1
:
diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s1
sudo mkdir /Volumes/my_writable_ntfs
sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/my_writable_ntfs -olocal -oallow_other
You'll get a popup "system extension blocked" click "Open Security Preferences" and click "Allow" next to the developer name (Benjamin Fleischer). If you can't click the allow button, see here.
Run the command again after clicking allow. It'll be good until you reboot. or manually dismount it.
For more details and instructions on making it permanent, see https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G
Can't say that using MacFUSE and NTFS-3G for MacFUSE is the easiest way, but they are free and that's great!:) I've used them for about a year until bought 500GB external Seagate HDD and got Paragon NTFS for Mac driver for free from Seagate site: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/ntfs-driver-for-mac-os-master-dl/. Works stable for a month, no problems happened yet. Anybody knows, will users of Seagate HDDs get free NTFS driver upgrade for new OS X when Apple will release it?
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4does the seagate version of paragon 14 work for drives other than seagate? – malhal Dec 30 '15 at 15:45
Before we start. Make sure your external name label is ONE word. That means there is no space in between.
my disk = WRONG
my_disk or my-disk or mydisk = CORRECT
Now
- Open Terminal [Command+Space+"terminal"]
- Type:
sudo nano /etc/fstab
- In nano, type:
LABEL=my_disk none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse
Note: my_disk is your disk name - To save and exit Control+X and Enter and Enter
- [optional] For ease of access, we create a sym-link to desktop: In terminal ->
sudo ln -s /Volumes ~/Desktop/Volumes
Later
When you don't need it anymore. It is as simple as:
In terminal sudo rm /etc/fstab
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5Removing
/etc/fstab
is only an option if it doesn't contain any other important entries – nohillside♦ Jul 11 '14 at 5:03 -
2@AFwcxx, The Label can contain spaces, you just have to substitute
\040
for the ' ' (space). See example inman fstab
:LABEL=The\040Volume\040Name\040Is\040This none msdos ro
– user3439894 Nov 10 '15 at 15:03 -
This and osxdaily.com/2013/10/02/enable-ntfs-write-support-mac-os-x helped me a lot. All I had to do was unmount my drive, edit the fstab file, create a sym-link and that's it. Thanks a lot! – WhatHiFi Feb 4 '18 at 10:16