How to Write to NTFS partitions on your Mac (Completely free)

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My brother recently got a Macbook Pro and he asked about being able to write to his old external HDD which had most of his data. The drive was formatted in NTFS since he was on Windows. Formatting wasn't an option.
In my search for a solution, I came across a solution that I liked. But it wasn't obvious or apparent and most links showed to use either a 3rd party paid app OR Homebrew; neither of which appealed to me.

So I decided to write an article in my blog explaining the steps to make it easier to come by should I need it again for my next Mac.

How to Write to Windows NTFS Partitions, USBs or External drives on your Mac (Completely Free)

Hope it helps anyone else looking for a such a solution.

Enjoy.
 

chscag

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Thanks for posting the link to your blog article.

Most of us here recommend purchasing the popular app "Paragon NTFS" ($19.95) which is easy to use and transparent.
 
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knightjp
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Thanks for posting the link to your blog article.

Most of us here recommend purchasing the popular app "Paragon NTFS" ($19.95) which is easy to use and transparent.

Thanks for the reply.

Paragon was great, but I was looking for a free solution. I knew that FreeBSD users are able to mount and write to NTFS partitions and since MacOS has quite a bit of shared code from the BSDs, I was sure that was something. In all fairness, Paragon uses code from the very same projects that are mentioned in my blog post. The same with Tuxera.

If looking to use a 3rd party app and not mess around with terminal commands, I have tried Mounty.app
This is also free and works well.
 
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This might be exactly what I have been seeking. "Everyone else" tells me to reformat the drive despite my repeatedly stating that is NOT a current option.
 

Slydude

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This might be exactly what I have been seeking. "Everyone else" tells me to reformat the drive despite my repeatedly stating that is NOT a current option.
Do be sure to make a backup of the NTFS drive before you do this. I haven't followed this method in some time because I have little need for it now. I've used it in the past, possibly before the Paragon driver was available, and I seem to remember some users reporting issues with data corruption. I never did get enough of a handle on that to decide whether the problem was NTFS-3G, Fuse, specific programs, or user error.
 

chscag

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My recommendation is to go with Paragon NTFS - simply because it works. All other methods may or may not work; specially mentioned by Slydude = NTFS-3G, and Fuse, both of which are prone to errors and data corruption.
 

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