I am lookin for FOSS Mac app that will allow me to write on an NTFS (Microsoft) formatted hard drive.
The Mac I am using used to have a license for NTFS for Mac by Paragon, which is super easy to install and use. However, the Mac’s SSD was replaced with a new one, which means I need an alternative. I don’t want to pay for another license.
Is there a FOSS alaternative that is easy to install and use?
It can’t require CLI. I just want to install it and it just works.
I have tried Mounty. It requires CLI and I can’t get it to work.
I have also tried Hasleo NTFS for Mac and it doesn’t work.
I just want to be able to write on my external hard drive.
I’m not a mac guy so I don’t know of any utilities for this but if you are able to do so you might want to reformat your drive to use exFAT, unlike NTFS, this filesystem tends to work consistently across Mac/Window/Linux it is a drive you want to use across systems with different OSes.
NTFS is prone to putting itself into a read only state when it has not been unmounted cleanly - have you tried the chkdsk utility under a windows system to clear / fix any errors on the device? (The Linux utility can also clear errors to make the device writable again - at a glance I didn’t see that functionality in the two mac projects you mentioned above). After clearing the errors the mac utilities that you mentioned may work for writes again.
Agreed with the above: exFAT is king for cross compatibility between OSes and behaves well without too much fuss overall.
[removed the scammy link to NTFSTool meh software…]
Such a simple thing should be doable.
I mean, Apple is hostile to quite a few standards but I would expect this to be a common (and solved) problem in 2026.
I am finding it crazy to pay for such a thing, at the same time Apple’s ecosystem just requires fixing by buying some tools sometimes, I do acknowledge it myself.
NTFS is not a standard outside of Windows but exFAT is.
Just format your external drive in exFAT and both macOS and Windows can read/write to it. Problem solved.
I was mostly baffled few years ago when I saw that a GUI SSHFS is not achievable in any way on MacOS. That was my main was of transferring things back in the day and I was very curious to know a decent reason as of why such a standard protocol was not natively supported on a UNIX system.
Even Windows could do that.
While Linux having an amazing 1st party support out of the box.
Paying for such a basic thing on MacOS made me quite angry and I just dropped MacOS altogether.
It’s quite annoying when people don’t use standards and make the whole OS switch/cooperation soooo cumbersome.
I am quite familiar with exFAT. I found out about it years ago when I discovered that I couldn’t copy files that were over 4GB on my 128 GB USB thumb drive. That made no sense to me, and in my search for a solution, I found out about exFAT, and now I format all my thumb drives in that format. I did not know that hard drives could be formatted in exFAT. That’s good to know.
…but it’s not a solution I can immediately apply
However, it’s not a solution I can easily apply. The process may be simple, but when you have an almost full 4 TB hard drive, you need another empty hard drive as a backup before your format. As most people here probably know, when you reformat a hard drive or thumb drive, all the data on it gets deleted. I have multiple external hard drives, and they’re all pretty full, so there is no way for me to back them up before reformatting them. Buying a new hard drive just for this is not possible right now.
An NTFS app is still a must for many Mac users
At least from my experience. Even if I have all my external hard drives formatted in exFAT, there is always the possibility that I may need to copy files to someone else’s hard drive, which is likely to be formatted in NTFS if they use a PC.
Most of the people I know who use both Mac and PC have their external hard drives formatted in NTFS. They are not aware of exFAT. And even if they were, from my experience it is very common for Mac users to have an app that lets them write on NTFS drives.
Typically, it’s NTFS for Mac by Paragon. That’s been my experience, at least. But that’s a paid app, which I already paid for but don’t want to pay for again just because I updated the SSD. Hence, I’m still looking for an easy way to do it for free.
NTFSTool has been installed on the Mac I’m using for a long time, and it doesn’t work. It hasn’t been updated in 2 years. Also, I literally just find out today that apparently it’s a scam?!
I deleted it.
I will make a plan to format my external hard drives in exFAT, but it will likely take me months to get it done.
IMO, it’s a disgrace. Unfortunately, my search continues. If anyone else has a recommendation, please let me know. I’m open to non FOSS if it’s free, easily to install and simply works.
Oh wow indeed, my bad looks scammy af given the GH issues.
Very sorry for the recommendation, haven’t checked the thing in details (for once).
Maybe give a try to this one then?
Checklist:
GUI available
looks easy enough to use (not sure if the final Electron UI is translated or not)
is free
docs are friendly to read (hopefully you won’t need too much troubleshooting)
works only for M-chips[1], hopefully it’s what you currently have
it requires SIP to be disabled which is not a new thing but always a bit concerning, yet it’s not the only thing in that mood when it comes down to deeply changing MacOS internals
Hopefully this one doesn’t do shady stuff with your data.
Also, you could really potentially consider using a Linux machine if you have one laying around. I know it’s not really a solution but gosh Apple makes it hard to have something basic here…
The maintainer itself references Paragon and the fact that no official solution being on the market is quite a mess.
Other tools referenced use at least a small amount of CLI (to have the GUI installed or require you to even mount the devices by yourself), so are out of the equation I guess.
Subpar alternatives...that I still found
There is also Mounty and the tool it also recommends iBoysoft NTFS for Mac which a scammy website and a sponsored link…
Apologies for the late reply. I tried Mounty, but it doesn’t seem to work. It requires that I install 2 other apps, which I did, but it still doesn’t work. The link for GUI version of Nigate doesn’t seem to work anymore. At this point I think I have no choice but to just buy another license for NTFS for Mac by Paragon which sucks.
GUI available
docs are friendly to read (hopefully you won’t need too much troubleshooting)
works only for M-chips
it requires SIP to be disabled which is not a new thing but always a bit concerning, yet it’s not the only thing in that mood when it comes down to deeply changing MacOS internals
