If this error occurs to your external hard drive, follow this page to learn How to Fix External Hard Drive Read Only on Mac With/Without Formatting. The USB drive will display as Read-only and you can follow Method 4 or Method 5 to enable NTFS to write support to the USB drive on mac. If the USB drive is with a Windows NTFS file system that macOS doesn't support by default.If the USB drive is blank and it doesn't have any errors, follow Method 3 to format and make it writable.If Mac warns that permission error on the USB drive, ignoring permission on Mac and access the drive by following Method 2.If Mac reports internal error messages, follow Method 1 and run First Aid to fix the issue.Also, note if Mac prompts any notifying messages. Step 2. Try to open the USB drive, and see the state of the USB. To find the right fix for a read-only USB, it's important that you check the state of the USB drive. Add Write Support to Read-Only NTFS USB Drive via Terminal Quick Guide: Check State of Read-Only USB Drive
Enable Read-Only NTFS USB Drive on Mac with EaseUS NTFS for Mac Ignore Permissions to Make Read-Only USB Drive Accessible Run First-Aid to Fix Read-Only USB Drive with Internal Errors If not, move on and follow the 5 methods below to fix the USB drive read-only immediately. So how to fix this error? First, please reconnect the USB drive to Mac and see if you can access and write to the USB drive. You won't have access to modify, edit, or even delete files and data on the drive.ĥ Methods to Fix USB Read Only Error on Mac: You can only read or view the saved data. When a USB drive is read-only, it means that your USB is write-protected. What Does It Mean When a USB Is Read Only
APFS is optimized for SSD (solid state drive) such as flash drives, so if you reformat a flash drive on a Mac, you should definitely choose APFS (unless you plan to use it with a pre-High Sierra Mac, of course).Supports to Fix: Read-only error on a hard drive, USB, external hard drive, SD card, etc., on macOS Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, and older Mac OS X. So if you think you might need to plug the USB drive into a Mac running an older version of macOS, format it as Mac OS Extended. Which should you choose? The key point is that disks formatted as APFS won’t be recognized by Macs running versions of macOS older than High Sierra. If your Mac is running macOS High Sierra or later, you have two options for file formats: APFS and Mac OS Extended. It’s specifically designed to securely delete sensitive data and will render it unrecoverable. If you have confidential files or sensitive data you need to remove from your Mac completely, you should use File Shredder. Tip: You don’t need to erase a whole drive to delete files securely. However, it also increases the time it takes to format the drive quite considerably. The further to the right you move the slider, the more ‘passes’ the erase tool will make and the more securely files will be deleted. Choose a security level using the slider. If you have previously stored sensitive data on the drive, click the Security tab. In the window that drops down type a name for the formatted drive in the box next to Name. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar and then choose Erase from the toolbar at the top of the window. Once you’ve copied any files you need from the USB drive to your Mac, go to Applications>Utilities and double-click on Disk Utility. The process of reformatting it will wipe all the data from it.
Make sure it has no files on it that you need. Open a new Finder window and click on the drive.
Plug the drive into a USB socket (if you have a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro that only has USB-C connectors, you’ll need a USB-C to USB-A adaptor). It’s exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a Mac. So, if you’ve bought a USB drive that’s formatted as Fat32, or any other format other than Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+) or APFS, here’s how to format a USB drive on Mac. That’s because most of the computers in the world run Windows, and Windows uses a different file system, usually one known as Fat32.ĭrives formatted as Fat32 can be read from and written to by macOS, but it’s not optimal and you’re more likely to run into problems than if you use macOS’ native format. However, unless it’s been designed for use with a Mac, it won’t be formatted using macOS’ preferred file system (either Mac OS Extended or APFS, depending on which version of macOS you’re running).
Nowadays, when you buy a USB drive, you can use it right out of the box with your Mac. Method 3: Format USB drive to NTFS in Windows 10/8/7 with disk management tool. You can also do it with the free Windows built-in disk management tool. How to Format USB Flash Drive to NTFS in Windows 10/8/7.
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