Fix USB Drive Read Only on Mac Error [Best 4 Solutions]

Most of the time, you can use a USB flash drive with your Mac computer without any problem. But sometimes, you may encounter errors, and the most common one is the USB drive read-only on Mac. Except for USB drives, external hard drives being read-only on a Mac happens frequently as well.

When a drive uses a macOS read-only file system (Microsoft NTFS), naturally, you can't write to it on a Mac. For example, you are unable to edit, rename, or delete the files on the hard drive, or copy files from your Mac to it. Besides, if the disk is set to write-protected, you can only read or view the data on it as well. 

Fortunately, it's quite easy to fix this problem. Read this article and you'll know how to change a USB drive from read-only permission to read-write on Mac.

Right-click the external drive and choose Get Info to view the file format of the USB. If it shows NTFS, use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to automatically mount the USB drive in full read-write mode. Then, you can write to it seamlessly.

USB flash drive read-only on a Mac, what to do?

Here, we list the 4 most common situations you may encounter with the USB flash drive read-only on Mac issue, along with their solutions.

If you don't know what happened but just can't write to your USB drive on the Mac, that's fine. You can follow this guide, and try the solutions below one by one.

Case 1: The USB drive isn't properly recognized by your Mac

Perhaps, you haven't connected the USB drive to your Mac correctly, inserted it into the port too quickly, or used this drive on a Windows PC, making macOS fail to recognize and mount it correctly. Or, the culprit is the temporary bugs in the system.

So, you can eject your APFS, Mac OS Extended, exFAT, or FAT32 USB drive, restart your Mac, and then insert it into the USB port tightly and slowly.

Case 2: USB drive permission is read-only

If you locked or set permission limits to your USB drive before, and for whatever reason, you forgot about it, the FAT32 USB drive becomes read-only on your Mac.

In this case, you only need to change the permission settings to remove write protection from the USB. Then, your flash drive will become writable again.

How to change permissions on the USB drive on your Mac:

After that, you can see if you can access and edit files on your USB flash drive. If not, safely eject the drive, restart the Mac, connect the USB drive to your Mac, and check again.

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Case 3: The USB drive is an NTFS file system formatted

Some USB sticks are formatted as Microsoft NTFS file systems by default for Windows use, or you've manually formatted the flash drive to NTFS. NTFS is not a macOS-compatible file system, it is only read-allowed on a Mac.

So, if your USB drive is formatted with NTFS, you will encounter the USB drive read-only issue on Mac.

Step 1: Check if your USB drive is formatted with an NTFS format

Step 2: Use NTFS driver to make you write to an NTFS USB on a Mac

If it is formatted with NTFS, how to write to an NTFS USB drive on a Mac? To solve this issue, the most effective way is to use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac software.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is the best NTFS drive manager for Mac in the market. It works as a Mac NTFS mounter to mount your Windows NTFS USB drive on your Mac device in full read-write mode. With it, you will have full read and write control over your NTFS-formatted drive in a macOS environment without formatting the disk with a Mac-compatible file system.

You can check this video guide to learn how to read and write NTFS drives on Mac using iBoysoft NTFS for Mac.

If you are not a video enthusiast, check the text version below:

What if my read-only USB drive is blank and there are no files on it?

If your NTFS formatted USB drive is totally blank, you can directly format it with a Mac-compatible file system to fix the Mac USB drive read-only issue, thus gaining full read and write permission to that drive. 

Note that formatting a disk will erase all data stored on it, so be careful! Here's how:

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Case 4: The USB drive contains unknown errors or is corrupted

When a USB contains some unknown internal errors, it may display as read-only on Mac, and prevents you from editing, transferring, deleting, or modifying files stored on it. In this case, to get rid of the Mac OS USB read-only issue caused by internal errors, you can run Disk Utility First Aid, and see if the problem still exists.

First Aid will help you repair some minor existing errors on the read-only drive. Here's how to fix the USB drive is read-only on Mac using Disk Utility:

If fortunately, you can write to your read-only drive after First Aid, congratulations. But if not, don't worry, back up your files on the flash drive and then format it in Disk Utility.

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Why is your USB drive read-only on a Mac?

It is necessary to know why your USB thumb drive becomes read-only on your Mac. Generally speaking, this problem can be caused by the following reasons:

Do note that the reasons behind the Mac USB drive read-only issue vary in different situations, we've just listed some of them. But whatever your case is, the ways in this post can help you out.

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Conclusion

In this article, we help you fix the USB drive read-only on Mac issue with 4 methods. By following the methods above one by one, you can get rid of the said issue, and write to your read-only USB flash drive successfully. Again, if your USB drive is NTFS-formatted, don't hesitate to use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to easily gain full read-write control over it!