Advice Request Is there any third-party program capable of writing NTFS drives on Mac?

[malti578]

Hi,

I have a problem:
I just switched from Windows to macOS. When I inserted my NTFS external hard drive into the Mac machine to transfer files, only to find I was restricted from writing to it. After searching for the possible solutions, I was advised to format my drive to FAT32 or exFAT (but this is not what I want) or get help from a third-party app like Paragon NTFS for Mac, iBoysoft NTS for Mac, or Tuxera NTFS for Mac.

These applications appear to be paid. Has anyone used any of these tools? Could you please give me some advice?

Thanks a lot!

 

[upnorth]

Maybe one of Paragons free tools might do the trick, but I never tested them all so can't confirm it. Their Backup and Recovery tool I prefer over Macs builtin Time machine.

Paragon Software Group – Products for Home Users

Select software products and free tools to manage your hard disk and storages, access different file systems, ensure data safety and system availability.

www.paragon-software.com

Perhaps member @MacDefender can help.

 

[malti578]

Maybe one of Paragons free tools might do the trick, but I never tested them all so can't confirm it. Their Backup and Recovery tool I prefer over Macs builtin Time machine.

Paragon Software Group – Products for Home Users

Select software products and free tools to manage your hard disk and storages, access different file systems, ensure data safety and system availability.

www.paragon-software.com

Perhaps member @MacDefender can help.

Thank you for your recommendation. I will take a look at these free Paragon tools.

 

[MacDefender]

You’ve already mentioned the 3 most popular paid solutions…. The only other thing I can think of is trying to use the open source FUSE approach,


Overall though I wouldn’t recommend using NTFS drives with a Mac as a long term solution. Nobody has completely reverse engineered NTFS and all of its features, you’ll be running the risk that your drive could get into a bad state by these software incorrectly writing to NTFS.

 

[malti578]

You’ve already mentioned the 3 most popular paid solutions…. The only other thing I can think of is trying to use the open source FUSE approach,


Overall though I wouldn’t recommend using NTFS drives with a Mac as a long term solution. Nobody has completely reverse engineered NTFS and all of its features, you’ll be running the risk that your drive could get into a bad state by these software incorrectly writing to NTFS.

@MacDefender Thank you for your suggestion. According to this post, I need to have Command Line Tools for Xcode and Homebrew package manager installed first and then download and install macFUSE. This approach requires some command line mastery, which seems difficult for me.

 

[MacDefender]

This really isn’t a good long term solution btw, there’s a reason other operating systems don’t really support writing to NTFS.

 

[malti578]

This really isn’t a good long term solution btw, there’s a reason other operating systems don’t really support writing to NTFS.

Yes, that's the problem. Thank you for your proposal!