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It is a common issue Mac users, when you try open NTFS external storage you allowed only read mode. And of course there are some solution. One of them it is NTFS 3G - free alternative.

I followed instructions

https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G

I set up FUSE then I set up Brew and eventually I set up NTFS 3G

But because lack of experience in Mac and English I can't understand what I need to do after all

According to link

Even though you have installed NFTS-3G, newly connected NTFS volumes will still be auto-mounted in read-only mode. To change this you need to replace Apple's NTFS mount tool /sbin/mount_ntfs with the one provided by NTFS-3G.

It says that I need to replace Apple's NTFS mount tool with the one provided by NTFS-3G...

How to do it? I don't know any tools provided by NTFS-3G...

Please help me to finish installing process

Edit

I found this two commands to solve my issue

sudo mv "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/sbin/mount_ntfs" "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/sbin/mount_ntfs.orig"
sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/sbin/mount_ntfs"

After I execute first command I got follow output

mv: rename /Volumes/Macintosh HD/sbin/mount_ntfs to /Volumes/Macintosh HD/sbin/mount_ntfs.orig: No such file or directory

After I execute second command I got follow output

ln: /Volumes/Macintosh HD/sbin/mount_ntfs: No such file or directory

Edit2

Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ sudo mv "/sbin/mount_ntfs" "/sbin/mount_ntfs.orig"

Password:

mv: rename /sbin/mount_ntfs to /sbin/mount_ntfs.orig: Operation not permitted
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  • The directions are on the linked page in your question. You need to read that page completely and follow the directions. Dec 25, 2016 at 9:44
  • @user3439894 If I understand you correctly you said about two commands that was mentioned little bellow (I edited my question according your comment) . Did you mean that?
    – Sirop4ik
    Dec 25, 2016 at 9:57
  • In the commands swap "Macintosh HD" for whatever your Mac's system hard drive is called. Or try the command without "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" in them. For example, sudo mv "/sbin/mount_ntfs" "/sbin/mount_ntfs.orig" . Dec 25, 2016 at 12:05
  • @AlistairMcMillan I tried but anyway got bad massage (added in question)
    – Sirop4ik
    Dec 25, 2016 at 13:35
  • 1
    Using the built-in NTFS support is much easier. If you want a nifty graphical utility you can install Mounty. Dec 25, 2016 at 15:23

2 Answers 2

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Alternative approach - may be unstable or cause data corruption

While you can use NTFS-3G for accessing NTFS drives, it should be noted that recent versions of macOS support writing to NTFS drives natively. This option however is hidden from the GUI and you'd normally need the terminal to do it:

sudo mount -t ntfs -o rw,auto,nobrowse /dev/disk3s1 ~/ntfs-volume

Uwe Hollatz created Mounty, which is a nifty tool to automate this process. It sits in your taskbar waiting for NTFS drives to be detected.

Mounty screenshot

If you use Homebrew, install it with the following command:

brew cask install mounty

Otherwise, download the DMG from its website.

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  • Good find. I went with this approach as I'm new to mac and I don't want to mess with the system integrity protection to enable ntfs-3g
    – palerdot
    Feb 5, 2017 at 15:21
  • 6
    A WORD OF WARNING if you are considering using write mode with the built-in macOS NTFS driver. I added an entry to my /etc/fstab to enable this (LABEL=Stuff none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse) and had constant problems with FS corruption. 100s of files and entire directories would sometimes disappear and the only way to fix it was to reboot into Windows and run CHKDSK /f on the volume. TL;DR: I would not recommend using rw mode on the built in macOS NTFS driver as the write support is not stable.
    – Gondrup
    Aug 3, 2017 at 10:49
  • 1
    @Gondrup eh, actually a couple of times I had to use the NTFS data recovery software I developed myself on drives used that way. :D Aug 3, 2017 at 10:53
  • Latest brew command: brew install --cask mounty Nov 8, 2022 at 6:37
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Operations need to be done in a particular state: by disabling System Integrity Protection. See https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/213575/62697

Here is the relevant part:

  1. 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 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]

Note: If the mv command fails with No such file or directory, then it's not a problem, just ignore it. The important command is the ln command.

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