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How to Delete Files From External Hard Drive On Mac?

I'm trying to organize my files and drives after a chaotic few years. But I am prevented from deleting any files from external hard drives (WD My Passport external hard drives). In past discussions, there were issues with NTFS files or non-NTFS files. I have no idea how to tell if my files are NTFS or not. Does anyone have any insights about any of this? How to override the apparent block on deleting files from external hard drives? Thanks.

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Eudora Liu

Eudora Liu

Answered on Sunday, June 8, 2025

To check why you can't delete files from WD My Passport external hard drive on your Mac, the first thing is to check the files system of your drive whether it is an NTFS format. You can do this operation in Disk Utility. Here's how:

  1. Connect your external hard drive to your Mac.
  2. Go to Launchpad > Other > Disk Utility.
  3. Select your drive and then you can see the file system in the right panel.

If your external hard drive has been formatted with NTFS, you need an NTFS reader to help you mount the NTFS drive in a write-read mode. I recommend iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to you.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac allows you to have full read and mode control over the Windows NTFS file system on Mac. It supports you to delete, edit, rename, and write files on NTFS drives in macOS & Mac OS X securely and freely without formatting.

  1. Download and open iBoysoft NTFS for Mac.
  2. Connect your drive to your Mac correctly.
  3. Wait for it to mount successfully and then you can delete files from an external hard drive on your Mac.

Expect that, you can format your external hard drive with a Mac-compatible format like APFS, exFAT, FAT32, etc.

  1. Mount your drive successfully in Disk Utility.
  2. Select your drive in the left sidebar and then click Erase in the top toolbar.
  3. Type in a new name and select a format for your drive.
  4. Click Erase to start formatting.

After that, you can do any operation you want on your external hard drive.

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