NTFS for Mac: Free & Paid Tools for Write Performance Compared

This post compares 7 Microsoft NTFS for Mac software, including freeware and paid apps. A third-party NTFS driver will help you read NTFS drive on Mac and enable Mac NTFS writing support, solving your Mac external hard drive read-only problem.

NTFS for Mac software review summary

Let's share these wonderful NTFS for Mac Free software with others!

Reddit discussions on free NTFS for Mac

NTFS is read-only on Mac, but writing to NTFS drives on Mac is necessary for some of us. So, an NTFS for Mac app is required.

We can see an intensive discussion in the following post on Reddit about a free app to write to NTFS partitions on Mac. The answers are decidedly diverse, but it can't say which is the best free NTFS for Mac software in a few words.

To pick the best one from iBoysoft NTFS for Mac, Mounty for NTFS, Paragon NTFS for Mac, and so on, tests and deep analyses should be made on them. This post is based on real tests and user reviews, giving you a comprehensive comparison among the popular Mac NTFS drivers, keep reading on to select the best in your eyes.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is the ultimate Microsoft NTFS solution to mount Microsoft NTFS drives in read-write mode on your Mac including all Mac models such as MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and Mac Studio. Now it can run on macOS 15 Sequoia,14 Sonoma, and 13 Ventura.

#NTFS for M4 Mac #NTFS for M3 Mac #NTFS for Mac Sequoia#NTFS for Mac Sonoma

Overall experience

Compared with other Microsoft NTFS driver software, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac tops the list. After a free download and a simple installation process, it allows users to use the NTFS drive and manage Mac NTFS files directly. 

Full Review

This small menu bar utility uses an intuitive interface, showing a list of detected NTFS volumes and disk management tools. NTFS drive for Mac computer by iBoysoft makes it simple, fast, and efficient to write to NTFS drives on M1 Mac, M2 Mac, M3 Mac and Mac based on Intel chip.

With NTFS driver for Mac software, users can copy and modify files on NTFS drives for free. It enables you to write or edit to your WD My Passport drive simply, as long as you install this iBoysoft WD NTFS driver for Mac.

Additional features: iBoysoft's tool is highlighted with simple disk management foreground, including one-click to open volume, clean NTFS partition, repair NTFS file system corruption, unmount NTFS disk, erase other disks to the Microsoft NTFS, etc.

Sum-up: User-friendly interface, plug-and-play usability, easy-to-use, and technical support make iBoysoft's NTFS driver the top NTFS driver. 

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Mounty for NTFS

Mounty for NTFS is another NTFS driver for Mac free software that helps write NTFS drives on your Mac.

Apple has changed the entire mount process since macOS Ventura. It removed the previous kernel-based architecture - /System/Library/Extensions/ntfs.kext. It means free NTFS drivers for Mac including Mounty for NTFS and Terminal command NTFS write will not function on macOS 13 Ventura, macOS 14 Sonoma and macOS 15 Sequoia anymore.

To make Mounty for NTFS work again on macOS Ventura and Sonoma, you need two additional pieces of software to use with Mounty 2: FUSE for macOS and NTFS-3G for Mac, so the installation is now a bit more complex.

﹒Enable NTFS Read/Write Access with macFUSE + NTFS-3G + Mounty

#Freeware#Big Sur

Overall experience

Mounty for NTFS is a free program accessed from both a DMG installer and Homebrew. It's exclusively prepared for remounting NTFS formatted hard drives in read-write mode on Mac computers. This freeware makes it easy to share files between Windows and macOS platforms.

Full Review

Mounty for NTFS comes with a frugal appearance. It is very easy to install and launch Mounty, and this utility will be a menu bar utility with a plain interface, only showing the list of remounted NTFS drives. This free NTFS reading and writing software works in a flow of Mac mounting NTFS drives in read-only mode first, and a notification pops up when it's ready, then remounting the disk with write access in the Finder window.

As an NTFS reader and writer freeware, it is common to encounter issues such as missing files and uneditable files. 

Other Highlights: Mounty for NTFS won't install a third-party driver but makes use of the mechanisms built in macOS - native Mac NTFS free write support. 

Sum-up: Though Mounty for NTFS is free and simple, you need to bear the risk of data loss, disk failure, and slow transfer speed. Anyhow, it's good enough for freeware.

NTFS-3G

NTFS-3G is a completely free NTFS  for Mac program by Tuxera to read and write NTFS drives on macOS, Linux, Android, FreeBSD, and other operating systems.

#Open source#Freeware#Command line operation

Overall Experience

Set aside its advantage of being free, NTFS-3G receives many complaints because of its poor performance and poor usability. It is basically a code source and requires extensive knowledge of command lines, FUSE for macOS, Homebrew, or Xcode to be able to compile the code, which makes the installation process unfriendly. 

FUSE for macOS

FUSE for macOS (OSXFUSE) allows you to extend Mac's native file management capabilities through a third-party universal file system including SSHFS, NTFS-3G, EXT, and OXFS. Installing this Mac NTFS free driver package is actually installing a compatibility layer to macOS, allowing users to use any fully functional file system written atop it to work with NTFS files. 

#Open source#Freeware#Monterey

Overall experience

FUSE for macOS is more cumbersome and less secure to mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode as every time you need to manually mount the NTFS partitions to write NTFS drives on Mac. This NTFS driver for Mac free resource also requires familiarity with Xcode and command lines to install a universal file system on it. 

Full Review

Sum-up: A lot of feedback from forums and the official page shows there are some compatibility issues with this free NTFS support tool. It also requires a tech background in command lines. It's recommended for developers who are aware of the risks and benefits well. 

SL-NTFS

SL-NTFS represents Snow Leopard NTFS and it is just a free interface on Apple Mac computer to enable NTFS writing. It is a very basic Microsoft NTFS for Mac tool that can only enable write access and mount/unmount NTFS disks. 

#Free app#OS X

Overall experience

Generally speaking, the usage and installation of SL-NTFS are relatively simple. Once the archive is unzipped and launched, all internal and external NTFS volumes will be listed with the status of reading and writing. Then, just tick the box under “Write permission” to enable Mac NTFS free write access. 

Full Review

Sum-up: SL-NTFS is the least recommended free app that supports NTFS reading and writing because of its poor compatibility and untrusted performance. For one-time use, you may have a try. 

Paragon NTFS for Mac

Paragon NTFS driver is a file system driver, which allows macOS to write to Windows NTFS-formatted hard drives, SSD, USB thumb drives, etc. It claims to grant full read-write access to Microsoft NTFS on a Mac computer. 

#10-day free trial#NTFS for M1 Mac#NTFS for M2 Mac#Sequoia#Sonoma

Overall experience

This tool works well in mounting an NTFS volume in the read-write mode most of the time. Like most products that support NTFS writing, you need to download, install, and connect NTFS formatted disks to your Mac to make it effective. It's a commercial NTFS driver but you can try it free for ten days. However, after that trial period, it's a different story to uninstall it from your Mac.

Full Review

Sum-up: Microsoft NTFS support by Paragon allows users to write, edit, copy, move, and delete files on Microsoft NTFS volumes from their Mac. But it's not recommended if you are just a bonus hunter who wants to try a free product. You nearly are unable to uninstall it from your Mac after a 10-day trial period. Read the full review.

Tuxera NTFS for Mac

Tuxera NTFS driver for Mac is a commercial Microsoft NTFS implementation for macOS built on the base of NTFS-3G.

#15-day free trial#NTFS for M1 Mac#Sonoma#Monterey

Overall experience

Speaking of its performance, the Tuxera NTFS driver for macOS does the same work as other free NTFS for Mac alternatives, helping open, copy, move, and delete files on Windows drives with NTFS format. But a big notice is that it's more likely to corrupt data when you transfer files between Windows PC and Mac using an NTFS flash drive.

Full Review

Sum-up: Though not completely free, you can try Tuxera with a generous 15-day trial before paying for a lifetime license key. However, you should always back files up in case of data corruption. Read the full review.

How we picked and tested Microsoft NTFS for Mac software

To test and compare the 7 top-rated Mac NTFS reading and writing software, we created a virtual machine with macOS Sequoia and other 6 clones to make sure all apps were installed and operated in the same system environment.

Then we connected an NTFS drive and tried to move 400 files that contain different file types (documents, audio, images, videos, etc.) into the NTFS drive to test if the drive was successfully mounted in read-write mode. Then we conducted a few same write operations to the NTFS drive to test if the most common NTFS write functionalities were supported.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac, Paragon NTFS for Mac, and Tuxera NTFS for Mac were also tested on a 2020 MacBook Air 13.3" to compare their performance and compatibility with Apple Silicon M1/M2 Mac.

Best NTFS for Mac software comparison table

Conclusion

All Mac NTFS free driver software has obvious flaws or shortcomings (like slow write speed, poor compatibility, and no technical support). Some disadvantages can even put your data at risk. If you don't care about the risks and want to try out the free NTFS reading and writing programs, Mounty for NTFS or FUSE for macOS is better free ones.

Most NTFS for Mac free drivers are for earlier macOS editions, and few of them work smoothly with macOS Big Sur, macOS Monterey, macOS Ventura or the latest macOS Sonoma, especially on Apple Silicon M1/M2 Macs.

With a little budget, you have a better alternative to Mac NTFS free tools - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. You can get enough reliability, stability, compatibility, and simplicity. It can provide a lot of Mac NTFS merits that an NTFS free driver app doesn't do including repairing and formatting NTFS drive. 

Also read:

How to Read and Write to NTFS on macOS High Sierra?