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What is the best free software for OS X Mountain Lion for enabling write support for FAT32 and NTFS?

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  • OSX can read + write to fat32, just NTFS is read-only (without some 3rd party software). If you use Win7 you could try to use exFAT (allows for files > 4GB and is write- and readable on win7/osx
    – Chrisii
    Jul 30, 2012 at 11:09
  • @mark - Let's keep them linked and open. Yes - the answers might overlap, but we can update Lion as versions change and keep this one current (for now)
    – bmike ♦
    Mar 29, 2013 at 18:05

4 Answers 4

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At the moment, the only free way for NTFS write access without using abandoned software is using NTFS-3G along with FUSE for OS X. There's a guide for that in the FUSE for OS X wiki.

If you need NTFS writing a lot you might be better off using Tuxera or Paragon, both commercial but more faster and more bulletproof solutions.

As pointed out in the comments, there's no write restriction for FAT32 volumes in OS X.

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  • I made this work on OS X 10.8.5 (12F37), but it was clunky. I installed FUSE for OS X, then downloaded and compiled NTFS-3G from source (./configure && make && make install), then ran sudo umount /dev/disk2s1 and sudo ntfs-3g -o rw,nobrowse /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/MyNTFSDrive. Also noteworthy: NTFS-3G requires that you mount the desired partition, not the entire disk.
    – Tom
    Nov 21, 2013 at 2:49
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Try NTFS-FREE, works for me on ML:

This program allows MacOSX to access Microsoft NTFS formatted harddrives connected by USB port. A modified version of the original Linux code, this program is packaged as a easy-to-use installer so that normal users can install it without hassle

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntfsfree/

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  • This works without problems in Mountain Lion. It's free, which is always better than paying $20 ~ $30 for something so basic :)
    – Wim Haanstra
    Feb 6, 2013 at 14:22
  • This is the best option so far. Worked like a charm, simple install, hassle free.
    – qed
    Jul 30, 2014 at 14:55
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Fuse4x + Ntfs-3g works on OS X Lion. All freeware.

  1. Install Homebrew.

  2. In Terminal, type brew install Fuse4x.

  3. Next, type brew install ntfs-3g.

  4. Type brew info fuse4x-kext . Enter the 2 lines of $ sudo code separately at the start of the text given.

  5. Type brew info ntfs-3g . Enter the 2 lines of code separately after the line "To replace the default Mac OSX automounter:" .

  6. A restart may be prompted.

  7. Done.

All the best.

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  • worked perfectly on 10.8.3
    – dtheory
    May 13, 2013 at 4:58
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As for me I use Paragon NTFS for Mac. Firstly, it is very fast, secondly, I can rely on it and I'm sure that it won't corrupt my files. Yes, it is commercial with 10-day trial but it is worth spending money. Moreover, it is cheaper than Tusera NTFS!

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