Can't copy file from my friend's mac to my external harddrve

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I have Seagate 500GB ultra portable Harddrive. I bought this because the description said that I can transfer files from mac to XP without reformatting. However, when I tried to move my friend's file to my external hard drive it didn't work (btw his computer is Mac Air and Mine is Mac Pro). I installed stuff that Seagate told me to make the transfer work for both mac and PC. However, Mac to Mac doesn't work. It doesn't let me to move file...

Can anyone help me?
 
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Dallas, Tx
Your Mac's Specs
Late 2011 MBP 15" Iphone4
This happened to me as well..I have the 1tb seagate, i had to change format to MS-DOS(FAT32) and change sharing permissions to read and write. Im not a computer pro by any means, but this did work for me.
 

vansmith

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Mini (2014, 2018, 2020), MBA (2020), iPad Pro (2018), iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch (S6)
What filesystem is the drive formatted as? If you're unsure, right click the drive > Get Info > Format.
 

chscag

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2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
NTFS is read only which is the reason you can not transfer files from Mac to Mac. Reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended Journaled and then you'll be able to transfer Mac to Mac. To go from Mac to PC or vice versa, FAT-32 or exFAT will work. (exFAT is preferred because of the file size limit of 4 GB imposed by FAT-32)
 
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SO, if i change to FAT, i can read and write on mac to mac and mac to pc?
 

chscag

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Yes, but please note that FAT-32 has a file size limit of 4 GB which is why exFAT would be better since large files can be transferred.
 

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