Western Digital also has a link to an older version of NTFS for Mac. Keep in mind that the new NTFS for Mac looks to be compatible with macOS 10.14 where WD’s software lists compatibility up to 10.12. Paragon Software does say in their FAQ that you may be eligible for an upgrade from WD or Segate’s older versions of NTFS for Mac.

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Summary: This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac. If the WD My Passport read-only on Mac problem is caused by the NTFS file system, installing iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to edit, rename, delete the saved files and transfer files to the read-only WD My passport hard drive.

Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers. Its product line covers WD My Passport, WD My Passport Ultra, WD My Book, WD Elements, WD My Passport for Mac and more. Among those external hard drive categories, WD My Passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. However, many users complain their WD My Passport is read-only on Mac like the user below in WD community.

'I have a WD My Passport 320GB external hard drive that I am trying to hook up to my iMac for the first time. I'm running macOS 10.13. I'm extremely frustrated because this drive is in a read-only mode, and I can't figure out how to change it! Any suggestion to fix this?'

Please continue reading and look for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem.

Why is the WD My Passport read-only?

Sometimes, the WD external hard drive is read-only on Mac when you just got a brand new WD external hard drive. In other times, it suddenly became read-only after you have been using it for a while. The most common reasons for a read-only WD external hard drive, like WD My Passport, are listed below:

• 1. Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
• 2. You have read-only permission to access WD My Passport hard drive
• 3. Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted

If you are not sure which reason has caused your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac, check the scenarios one by one. If you know the reason already, you can jump to the scenario that best describes your situation.

Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted

For WD My Passport Ultra and WD Elements, check if the hard drive is formatted with NTFS file system. By default, macOS can mount a Windows NTFS volume or drive in read-only mode. You can view the files saved on the NTFS-formatted partition or drive but can't make any changes to them. In addition, the WD My Passport hard drive won't let you add any files to it. To check if your WD My Passport is NTFS formatted, follow the steps:

• 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities.
• 2. Click the WD My Passport (you may have changed its name) at the left sidebar. The file system information will be displayed on the right.

Note: You can also right-click the disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info' to check the file system information.

After having confirmed that the WD My Passport is formatted with NTFS, many people will choose to convert NTFS to APFS (for macOS Catalina, Mojave and High Sierra) or reformat the WD My Passport hard drive to make the WD external hard drive compatible with Mac. But as you know, directly formatting WD Elements or My Passport on Mac causes data loss.

In fact, installing an NTFS for Mac driver is a much easier way.

Solution: Install an NTFS for Mac driver to make WD My Passport writable

The NTFS drivers for macOS - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can help you read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drives on Mac.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is an NTFS disk management tool. It can manage NTFS drives with NTFS write support. It can easily and effectively mount NTFS drive on Mac automatically in read-write mode. It works with macOS Big Sur 11/10.15/10.14/10.13.

Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.

• 1. Download, install, and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac. Then, restart your Mac.
• 2. Connect the NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive to Mac.
• 3. Write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive after the drive has been mounted successfully.

Besides an NTFS mounter, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can also open, unmount, eject, erase and repair NTFS volumes. It can list all attached external disks including USB flash drives, SD cards, memory sticks, external hard drives and so on. You can open them with one click. Moreover, you can reformat them to NTFS with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac if you need.

Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive

If your WD My Passport external hard drive is not formatted with NTFS but you have no write permission to it, it is probably because you have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport. Since your WD external hard drive is write-protected, all your write access is denied.

To know your permission to the WD My Passport, follow the steps below:

• 1. Right-click the WD My Passport disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info'.
• 2. Check the information at the bottom under the Sharing & Permissions tab.

If you can see the message 'You can only read', then you will understand why you can't write to your WD My Passport drive.

Solution: Change read-only permission on the WD My Passport drive

Follow the instruction below to change permission on Mac so that you can access the WD My Passport again:

• 1. Click on the lock icon at the right corner in the Get Info window.
• 2. Enter password if asked.
• 3. Check the 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.
• 4. Click on the gear button and choose 'Apply to enclosed items…'.
• 5. Click 'OK' when you are asked to confirm the operation.
• 6. Click the 'Read Only' in Privilege column and select 'Read & Write'.

By now, you have regained the read and write access to the WD My Passport.

Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted

If you are sure that the read-only WD My Passport is not caused by NTFS file system nor read-only permission, another possible cause might be the disk corruption. When an external drive is corrupted, people suddenly have trouble reading or/and writing to the disk. Then you will have to fix the corrupted WD My Passport external hard drive to make it writable again. We will introduce two solutions here:

• Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
• Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac

Solution 1: Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac

This solution might help you solve the read-only external hard drive problem without formatting. You will utilize a built-in tool on Mac called Disk Utility. It is used to manage internal and external disks on Mac. There is a function called First Aid in Disk Utility that can be used to check for and repair errors on the selected disk or volume.

Here is how to fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility:

• 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
• 2. Select the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
• 3. Click on First Aid and click on 'Run' to repair the WD My Passport drive.
• 4. Click 'Done' after the operation completes.

If First Aid fails to repair the WD external hard drive, your disk might be seriously corrupted. You will have to reformat the WD My passport to make it not read-only.

Solution 2: Reformat the WD My Passport for Mac

Reformatting the corrupted WD My Passport drive is the ultimate solution for fixing the read only file system on Mac. Follow the steps below to know how to make the WD My Passport compatible with Mac and PC.

• 1. Make sure you have a copy of your important files on WD My Passport hard drive, or recover lost data from the external hard drive for free with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
• 2. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
• 3. Click on the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
• 4. Check Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
• 5. Input a name.
• 6. Choose FAT or exFAT as format for convenience because either of them is compatible with both Windows and macOS. Then, how to format the WD My Passport for Mac exclusive use? Simply choose APFS or Mac OS Extend format in Disk Utility, which also works if you want to format WD Elements for Mac.
• 7. Choose 'GUID Partition Map' as Scheme.
• 8. Click on 'Erase' button.

You can reconnect the WD external hard drive to Mac again to see if it is writable now.

Conclusion

The external hard drive read-only on Mac problem doesn't happen to WD external hard drives only. Any external hard drive could be write-protected on Mac. It is quite common to see other notable external hard drive brand get the same complaint like Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, etc. When you come across the read-only disk problem on Mac, the post is always helpful.

If you lost the data from WD My Passport hard drive, iBoysoft Data Recovery software is highly recommeded to recover your data.

Cross-platform incompatibility has been a huge roadblock for people who have to move back and forth between Windows and macOS, especially when you need to share files between Windows and Mac using an NTFS drive. After you connected an NTFS drive such as a Seagate or WD My Passport NTFS drive to the Mac, you found that you could view the files stored on your NTFS-formatted drive on Mac, but you couldn't edit, rename, copy, paste, delete, move or create files on it.

Any ways that you can read-write to NTFS drives on Mac running either macOS or Mac OS X? This article will introduce three solutions for you to solve the ready-only NTFS drives on Mac without formatting.

And the simplest solution only takes 3 steps:

• 1. Download, install, and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac.
• 2. Restart your Mac, then connect your NTFS drive to your Mac.
• 3. Read-write your NTFS drive on Mac freely.

Can macOS read NTFS?

Yes, you can read Windows NTFS-formatted USB flash drives, SD cards, memory sticks and external hard drives without any problem. No matter what Mac you are using, either a desktop or a laptop, and no matter which Mac operating system is running on your Mac, macOS or Mac OS X, you are able to read NTFS drives on Mac.

You can view your files by opening them. Files will appear the same quality as they do on a PC. What's more, if you have used Boot Camp Assitant to create a Windows BootCamp partition on your Mac SSD, the BootCamp partition is also formatted with NTFS. Therefore, you have read support to Bootcamp partition on your Mac SSD as well.

However, your files will show read-only or locked beside the file name. You can't make any changes to those files nor create/save/move any files on the NTFS drives on Mac. Sharing files between NTFS drives and Mac looks impossible.

Want to have full read-write access to NTFS drives or BootCamp partition on Mac? Keep reading to learn how to enable NTFS write support on Mac and mount BootCamp partition with read-write support.

How to read-write to Microsoft NTFS drives on Mac?

In this section, three options are introduced:

1. Free NTFS drivers for Mac
2. Cost-effective NTFS for Mac software
3. Apple's native NTFS support

Option 1: Free but complicated NTFS driver for Mac

There are some NTFS for Mac free driver that can help you read-write to NTFS drives on Mac. For example, FUSE for macOS is an open-source project. It can mount NTFS drives in read-write mode.

The process will be very technical and please follow the guide very carefully.

Wd Ntfs Driver For Mac Catalina Island

Step 1: Download and install Xcode.

• 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal and run the following command line: xcode-select --install.
• 2. Click 'install' when you are asked to install the Apple's command line developer tools.

Step 2: Download and install Homebrew.

• 1. Go to the Terminal window and run the following command line:
• /usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)'.
• 2. Hit Enter to install it (provide password when prompted).

Note: If you have installed Xcode and Homebrew before, messages will pop up in Terminal window telling you have installed them before. You just ignore the messages, keep doing the next steps.

Step 3: Download and install FUSE for macOS.

Use default options when installing it.

Step 4: Install NTFS-3G.

• 1. Go to Terminal window and run the following command line: brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs-3g.
• 2. Hit Enter.

Step 5: Disable SIP (System Integrity Protection).

SIP exists to protect the operating system from unauthorized changes.

• 1. Restart your Mac and hold down Command + R immediately until you see the Apple logo.
• 2. Open Terminal from the Utilities menu.
• 3. Run the command line: csrutil disable.
• 4. Hit Enter.
• 5. Reboot the Mac.

Step 6: Read and write to NTFS on Mac.

• 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
• 2. Run the following command line:
• sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.original
• sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs
• 3. Hit Enter.

Note: It is recommended that you enable SIP after you finish using NTFS drives on Mac to better protect your Mac. To enable SIP, you just need to follow the Step 5 and run command line 'csrutil enable' in Terminal window, hit Enter and restart the Mac.

Other than FUSE for macOS, Mounty for Mac, NTFS-3G, SL-NTFS are other free NTFS drivers for Mac. Like NTFS-3G, they are free but all of them require a good bit of work to install and use.

If you feel uncomfortable with this method which involves so many command lines and rebooting the Mac, here is an easier solution for you to read and write to NTFS drives on Mac.

Option 2: Commercial but easy-to-use NTFS driver for Mac

Commercial NTFS drivers for Mac are other options to make the NTFS drive compatible with both PC and Mac. They include iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. They might cost you a little money, but they offer high reliability, fast write speed, excellent compatibility and free technical support, which you probably won't get from a free NTFS driver for Mac.

In this section, we'll introduce the most cost-effective NTFS app for Mac: iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to help you read and write to NTFS on Mac computer.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac - a comprehensive NTFS manager

Wd Ntfs Driver For Mac Catalina Free

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can enable NTFS write support on Mac automatically after NTFS drives are detected. It supports full read-write support. You can create, save, copy, paste, delete and modify files on NTFS drives on Mac freely.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac has fast NTFS write and file transferring speed. With iBoysoft NTFS for Mac, you won't feel any difference between using an NTFS drive on Mac or using an drive with the format that is fully supported by macOS. And now, it also supports write to NTFS drives on ARM-based M1 Mac.

Best NTFS for Mac - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac

• Read and write NTFS volumes on Mac
• Mount and unmount NTFS volumes
• Repair NTFS file system errors
• Erase data on NTFS disks
• List and open all attached external drives
• Reformat other file systems to NTFS
• Support macOS 11/10.15/10.14/10.13

Besides, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac offers other NTFS management features to help users better manage NTFS drives and other external drives. It allows you to open, unmount, eject or erase the NTFS volumes with one click. You can utilize it to repair the NTFS file system errors. Also, the software will list all conencted USB flash drives, SD cards, external drives and memory sticks. You can open them in the main window too. Moreover, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac supports erasing the data on NTFS disks and reformatting other file systems to NTFS.

Steps to read and write to NTFS drives on Mac:

• 1. Free download and install iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on Mac. Then, restart your Mac.
• 2. Connect your NTFS drive to your Mac computer.
• 3. After your drive is mounted successfully, you can manage your drives and read-write to NTFS drives.

Option 3: Enable NTFS write support using command line

I bet most people don't know that the Mac operating system includes the experimental NTFS write support, but it is disabled by default. You can run some command lines in Terminal to enable it. However, Apple hasn't officially supported NTFS-writing ability yet. It is proven to be unstable and risky. It may cause disk corruption and permanent data loss. If you accidentally couldn't access your NTFS drives or lost data from them, try iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery to recover important files.

This solution is not recommended, but if you are curious about how to enable Apple NTFS write support, follow the steps below:

• 1. Go to the Applications > Utilities > Terminal to launch the Terminal program.
• 2. Input 'sudo nano /etc/fstab' to edit the fstab file (provide your password when prompted). No letters will show up when you type in password.
• 3. Type 'LABEL=VOLUME_NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse' in the editor window for the fstab file and press 'Control + O' to write. (Be sure to change the word VOLUME_NAME to the name of your NTFS volume)

Tips: If you have multiple NTFS drives you want to write to, write different line for each NTFS drive.

• 4. Hit Enter and press 'Control + X' to exit.
• 5. Re-connected the NTFS drive to the Mac.
• 6. Click 'Go' at the top left menu bar and choose 'Go to Folder'.
• 7. Type in /Volomes and hit Enter.
• 8. Find the NTFS volume or drive and drag it to sidebar for easy access.

Tips: If you want to undo the change, follow the step 1 and step 2, then delete the command line. Save your change and exit.

Conclusion:

Writing to NTFS drives on Mac is totally possible. You have several options to choose from - free NTFS drivers, cost-effective NTFS drivers and Apple's native NTFS support. Free NTFS drivers for Mac and Apple's NTFS support are free but take extra amount of work to mount NTFS drives on Mac in read-write mode. They are risky and very unstable. Even though iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is not completely free, it saves you a lot of time and effort for its excellent reliability and ease of use.

If you want to use external drives for file transferring between Windows and Mac frequently, it is a good idea to convert NTFS to exFAT or FAT32 to make the drives compatible with both platforms.