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What I'm looking to achieve is to write (and read) data files on BD-R discs for storage / backup / archive purposes, just like one can do with CD and DVD discs. For clarity, I am not interested in copyrighted / encrypted / DRM'd BD-ROM HD video material / films, just plain data accessible through Finder.

Obviously, I would have to provide myself with a Mac compatible Blu-ray writer / burner first.

That being said, does OS X support reading and writing data files from / to BD-Rs natively without 3rd party software? If not, is there any open-source software that would allow that?

I'm on a MBP with Yosemite and have never used an optical drive on OS X, so I'm not familiar with that process. Online documentation on Blu-ray for Mac / OS X is pretty sparse and I can't find an authoritative source on the matter. I'd be hard-pressed to believe I'm the only one who is trying to achieve that.

Thanks!

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Reading the original post carefully, I can confirm that nothing special is needed to mount a blank Blu Ray Disk in the Finder, and then burn data to it with Mac OS X's built-in disk burning tool. I just did this yesterday with a 25GB BD-R. This worked perfectly with an external LG Bluray burner I just bought from OWC. Hope that helps.

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  • What post, the one from MacWorld? And you didn't need to install any software at all?
    – Jules
    Jan 7, 2016 at 23:21
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    I was referring to your original post asking about being able to burn data to BD-R. The short answer is: Yes, no other software or anything required. Let the Finder mount the blank media, and you can burn the full 25GB. Jan 8, 2016 at 1:34
  • And, just to clarify: I don't know anything about authoring Bluray movie disks, let alone being able to play their videos in Mac OS X. I think that's where the confusion is: you wanted to know about using BD-R just for data, and the MW article was talking about extra software needed to play BR movies. Jan 8, 2016 at 1:36
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No need for additional software, just plug in a USB Blu-Ray writer and burn files to it just as if it is any other storage medium.

Here's an article from MacWorld that confirms the above.

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  • OS X does not natively support the writing of Blu-ray Discs. It requires 3rd party drivers/software. Jan 7, 2016 at 0:08
  • @user3439894 You sure? Jan 7, 2016 at 0:09
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    I came across that article as well but found it misleading the way it is explained. "You won’t need any special drivers to mount Blu-ray discs, but without the right playback software, you can’t do much with them." That's not really clear. Like other articles, it seems mostly focused on the movie playback aspect, which is not what I'm interested in.
    – Jules
    Jan 7, 2016 at 0:12
  • True, but if the disk can be easily mounted, there shouldn't be anything stopping you from writing to it. Jan 7, 2016 at 0:13
  • Perhaps it mounts as read only and cannot be written to? I can't find supporting documentation on the subject.
    – Jules
    Jan 7, 2016 at 0:20
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OP, Mac OSX does indeed support BD-R as others have already said, assuming you have a compatible DVD player. Yet, while one of my macs mounts the volumes automatically in Finder, another one won't. Instead, I must run Disk Utility and manually mount the volume. After that, everything works as normal. Hope that helps in the event that is an issue.

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