Before you are led to the introduction of free NTFS drivers for Mac, here is some background information in case you don't know.
You can read Windows NTFS drives on Mac. But Mac can't write to NTFS drives, including create, edit, copy, paste, delete, or transfer files on NTFS drive on Mac desktops and laptops. Do you know why?
The latest macOS Catalina 10.15 has been released and expected to be an outstanding OS which supports plenty of advantageous features. However, macOS Catalina is still not supported to write NTFS drive which is used by many Windows users, how to write NTFS drive on macOS Catalina 10.15? The first method I would like to introduce is to use a paid third-party NTFS for Mac application like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. The software is easy-to-use, reliable and won’t cost you much money. The software supports an auto-mount function which allows users to mount NTFS drives on macOS Catalina without any manual work. Nov 09, 2019 How to install Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Tuxera 2019 with Catalina support - Duration: 3:18. 52,042 views. Tuxera NTFS 2020 Crack Full Product Key Download.
NTFS is a file system developed by Microsoft, the competitor of Apple. NTFS is used by default on Windows platform, especially for system drive. Additionally, if you use Boot Camp to create a Windows partition on your Mac, you will find you can't mount BOOTCAMP Widnows partition with both read-write access either. Up to now, Mac operating systems, including macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra/Sierra and Mac OS X El Capitan, only provide NTFS read support but deny NTFS write support.
You know the business, but for users, is there any way to let Mac write NTFS drives? Can you make the NTFS drive fully compatible with macOS or Mac OS X? Sure. The easiest method is to use NTFS driver for macOS software.
If you are looking for a totally free NTFS for Mac software, there are four options: Mounty for NTFS, NTFS-3G, FUSE for macOS and SL-NTFS.
Some Mac users may have upgraded to macOS Catalina and are digging around for an NTFS driver for macOS 10.15. But it's hard to find a Free NTFS for Mac that supports macOS 10.15 yet. Fortunately, iBoysoft has upgraded their software iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to be compatible with macOS Catalina.
If you are using a Mac running macOS 10.14 and earlier, you can try the NTFS driver for Mac below and share NTFS drives between Windows and Mac.
Mounty for NTFS is completely free software to enable write ability to NTFS drives on Mac. It has simple design to help users mount NTFS drives with write support on Mac.
As a free utility, Mounty for NTFS does have some highlights:
But Mounty for NTFS dose get complaints because:
NTFS-3G is an open-source project from Tuxera, so the public can download this NTFS for Mac free to write to Windows NTFS drives on Mac computers.
Set aside its advantage for being free, NTFS-3G is complained a lot because of its poor performance. Some main drawbacks of this free NTFS driver for Mac are listed below:
FUSE for macOS (was OSXFUSE) is another open and free NTFS driver for Mac from Tuxera that can enable write support to NTFS drives on Mac. In fact, FUSE is a file system extension that allows user to read and write disks with the formats that are not fully supported by Apple.
FUSE for macOS is worth trying because:
Kmplayer for mac catalina. As a free NTFS driver for Mac, FUSE for macOS has some obvious limitations:
SL-NTFS means Snow Leopard NTFS. As a matter of fact, writing to NTFS on Apple is possible since Mac OS 10.6 without any third-party NTFS driver, but the NTFS writing support is disabled by default. Therefore, SL-NTFS is used as an interface on the Apple NTFS driver to enable writing to NTFS drives on Mac.
As a free NTFS for Mac app, SL-NTFS has some pros as followings:
However, SL-NTFS has some cons to prevent people from using it.
Generally speaking, despite of being free, those free NTFS for Mac software have various flaws, making them very risky to use.
If you are afraid of using a risky free NTFS utility for Mac, there are two cost-effective alternatives for you. Even though they are not completely free, they can provide a lot of merits that free NTFS drivers don't have.
Free NTFS drivers for Mac can be troublemakers because of their low write speed, poor compatibility, no technical support, etc. Nevertheless, you don't have to pay a fortune to get enough reliability, stability and simplicity from a cost-effective NTFS for Mac - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac or iBoysoft Drive Manager.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is an ultimate NTFS for Mac solution in macOS and Mac OS X that can easily help you mount NTFS volumes on Mac desktops and laptops as regular drives in read-write mode.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac has quite a few advantages you can take into account:
Another great alternative to free NTFS driver for Mac is iBoysoft Drive Manager. It is a handy Mac tool that can enable full read-write access to NTFS drives on Mac and help manage multiple external drivers/network drives with one click.
iBoysoft Drive Manager is a great replacement of a free NTFS driver for Mac because:
If you want to know any disadvantages that iBoysoft Drive Manager might have, I would say the only one should be - it is not free. But it is really cheap compared with other commercial NTFS for Mac programs, such as Paragon and Tuxera.
We also provide a table to help you find the most preferable NTFS driver:
| NTFS driver for macOS | iBoysoft Drive Manager | iBoysoft NTFS for Mac | Mounty for Mac | NTFS-3G | FUSE for macOS | SL-NTFS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NTFS writing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-mount NTFS in read-write mode | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Speed | Fast | Fast | Slow | Slow | Slow | Slow |
| Supported Mac OS | macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11 to 10.8. | macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11 to 10.8. | macOS 10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11 to 10.6. | macOS 10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11 to 10.6. | macOS 10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11 to 10.6. | macOS 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11 to 10.6. |
| Supported devices | USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, etc. | USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, etc. | USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, etc. (not all) | USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, etc. | USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, etc. | USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, etc. (not all) |
| Supported file system | NTFS, APFS, FAT32, exFAT, etc. | NTFS, APFS, FAT32, exFAT, etc. | NTFS | NTFS | NTFS, APFS, FAT32, exFAT, etc. | NTFS |
| Tech support | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Simple installation | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Ease of use | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Other | 1.Manage external storage media with one click. 2.Map network drive as local drives. | 1. Repair NTFS. 2.Erase NTFS volumes. 3.Reformat other file systems into NTFS. | N/A | N/A | Multiple languages are available. | N/A |
| Price | $29.95 | $19.95 | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Free download | Download | Download | Download | Download | Download | Download |
Now, you have a few options in your hands. If you don't care the risks and want to try out the free NTFS for Mac programs, generally speaking, Mounty for NTFS and FUSE for macOS are better ones. However, if you care about the reliability, technical support and NTFS write speed a lot, or you are specifically looking for an NTFS driver for macOS Catalina, Mojave or High Sierra, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is your best choice.
macOS Catalina is formally launched and everyone loves to interact with it. Catalina has many new fantastic and surprising features but like its previous versions, Catalina also doesn’t support reading and writing USB and external Hard Drives. The same case is with macOS Mojave. macOS Mojave was rolled on WWDC 2018 and it is still popular. It has quite lots of lovers as it has one of the safest security system and fantastic features. Apple’s products including macOS have their own file system like other operating systems. They don’t support each others file system. In this post, I’ll show how to write NTFS drives in macOS Catalina and macOS Mojave.
This way, macOS doesn’t support NTFS drives which turns into a problem. Solving this problem is difficult but after lots of trying and searching, we have come up with a solution. This solution is completley free and you don’t need to pay a penny. We do not support or we are also not sponsored.
Microsoft has developed NTFS (New Technology File System) and doesn’t license anyone else to utilize it. According to some sources Apple has tried to buy the NTFS license but Microsoft priced it pretty expensive. Without a license Apple can’t NTFS to his macOS or other products. It would be illegal and unlawful.
NTFS is the file system that Windows has used for pretty much every Windows. For sure, it is for storing and retrieving files on a hard disk. This file system was developed by Microsoft in July 1993 and since then it has been updated many times. The purpose of the creation is to work with the Windows NT family of operating systems, Microsoft called it the NT File System, which became NTFS later. The NTFS is a pretty fast, safe, and reliable way to store, manage, organize, and do everything you’d like to do with your files and folders on Windows.
ExFAT file systems is the full form of Extended file allocation Table that. Until now, many people are using it on their regular bases. ExFAT is a lightweight file system like FAT32, but without the extra features and overhead of NTFS and without the limitations of FAT32. This is the latest file system. The biggest difference between NTFS and ExFAT is that you can have a maximum of 128 PIB file but in NTFS the maximum storage file can be 16TB. Most users use ExFAT in SD Card SDXC 32GB. You can convert files in NTFS but ExFAT support all the Windows versions.
While a macOS or macOS Catalina can’t write NTFS Drives it doesn’t mean that they can’t read NTFS Drives. macOS can read and can transfer content from the device to another destination. Users can only write to NTFS drives in macOS Catalina by acquiring a disk format such as ExFAT or other tools that can make the action possible.
With these, transferring and moving files from macOS to Windows is better done with ExFat which works on both Windows & Mac. But if you don’t have access to make the change the format to exFAT. Here’s how to write NTFS drives in macOS Catalina and Mojave.
The process of writing NTFS can be done in a few different ways. The first one is the third-party app. With many apps out there, you can select one that most of them are premium. And write NTFS drives in macOS Catalina and Mojave.
Many of them works but most likely you will need to pay for their subscription fee. Except them, some of them are also free. You can choose your third party apps according to storage space but we are going to show you how to write NTFS drives in macOS Catalina and macOS Mojave without any app.
In the first, make sure your drive has a single one-word label like my USB label.
For entering the commends: Go to Terminal, and write these commends there.
Sudo nano /etc/fstab
For the password, enter it.
Commands
After that, enter the next command but remember to change the NAME to your USB label. For example, my USB drive’ label is Data so I have written it but you should enter your USB drive’s name.
LABEL=NAME ntfs rw,auto, nobrowse
How to Write NTFS Drives in macOS Catalina and Mojave
If you have several NTFS drives which you’d like to write to, add and enter a different line for each like this.
When you’ve done that, save the file with Command + O and then press Command + X to close nano.
Now connect the USB and wait for a moment and then disconnect it. Reconnect it now and you should see it in the “/Volumes” directory. From Finder, click on Go > Go to Folder and navigate to “/Volumes” to see the drive.
Unlike every drive that pops up, it won’t pop up but appears on your desktop typically.
To undo this, enter the commands like the above steps to open the /etc/fstab file in nano. There, delete the particular line you added to the file and save the file and close the nano.
Speaking of writing NTFS drives, another easy and low-risk option aside from this process and the exFat option which works well on both operating system, the easiest and most reliable and safest option for not corrupting the files is the paid third-party drivers. We can’t say which one is better, but any of them will work fine.
That was all about Write NTFS Drives in macOS Catalina and Mojave. If you’ve done this, let us know how it went.