Read & write to NTFS from your Mac computer

My external HDD is in NTFS format and the Mac I’m using at work cannot write files to it. I solved this issue by running NTFS-3G on my Mac OS X version 10.11.

Follow these simplified instructions to mount your NTFS drive as writeable in your Mac. If you encounter any problem, scroll down below the instructions to see solutions for errors I encountered.

1. Install Homebrew package manager by running the following command, as instructed in brew.sh:
   /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

   1	/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

2. Install osxfuse if you haven’t yet.
   
3. Install NTFS-3G from Homebrew by typing this on your Terminal:
   brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs-3g

   1	brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs-3g

4. Plug your external drive into your Mac
   
5. Unmount the external drive from your Mac if it’s already mounted. (Unmount, not unplug!)
6. Run the following commands to manually mount the external HDD as NTFS-3G:
   sudo mkdir /Volumes/NTFS sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/NTFS -olocal -oallow_other

   1 2	sudo mkdir /Volumes/NTFS sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/NTFS -olocal -oallow_other

7. Your external drive should now appear as NTFS-3G format drive, and you should be able to write on it now from your Mac.

Error Fixing

OsxfuseRequirement unsatisfied

I tried to install NTFS-3G on my personal MacBook Pro but it failed with this message after installing Homebrew:

So I run this command to install osxfuse:

My brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs-3g command moved past that issue after that.

brew link errors

I got these errors after running the command brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs-3g again:

So I ran brew doctor and some of the results were these:

Warning: The following directories are not writable:
/usr/local/share/man

This can happen if you “sudo make install” software that isn’t managed
by Homebrew. If a formula tries to write a file to this directory, the
install will fail during the link step.

You should change the ownership and permissions of these directories.
back to your user account.
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/share/man

Warning: You have unlinked kegs in your Cellar
Leaving kegs unlinked can lead to build-trouble and cause brews that depend on
those kegs to fail to run properly once built. Run brew link on these:
ntfs-3g
pkg-config

First I ran this command for the permission issue: sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/share/man

Then ran this command too: brew link ntfs-3g

After the linking, brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs-3g finally installed successfully!

Failed to access volume /dev/disk1s1

After running the command sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/NTFS -olocal -oallow_other, this error was shown:

ntfs-3g: Failed to access volume ‘/dev/disk1s1’: No such file or directory

This means disk1s1, as specified in the command, cannot be found. What you can do is find the IDENTIFIER of your external drive from the table that this command returns:

Reference(s): NTFS-3G on osxfuse

Related Posts:

Posts that may be related to "Read & write to NTFS from your Mac computer":