You Can Only Read External Hard Drive On Mac, Fix It

Quick Navigation:

• Why Does Mac Only Read External HDD?
• How to Fix the "Read-Only" External Hard Drive on Mac
• Conclusion
• FAQs About External Drive Is Ready Only on Mac

It is one of the most annoying things that you can only read external hard drive on Mac but cannot change the files on the drive. When you need to save a project, change a document, or back up important data, being in read-only mode can be a real pain. This problem often happens because of permissions, file system incompatibilities, or disk failures.

The good news is that there are a few easy ways to fix this issue and get full access to your external drive again. This guide will show you how to figure out what's wrong and investigate different ways to write ability back so you can use your external drive without any restrictions.

Why Does Mac Only Read External HDD?

Most of the time, an external drive on a Mac is "Read Only" for three reasons. The key to solving this problem is determining which of these applies to you.

🔐 Permission Settings: A computer can change an external HDD read and write rights. It's possible that when you linked your drive to your Mac, the "Read Only" permissions went with it. Finder makes it easy to change this. To get to that part, click here.

Formatting Errors: Formatting mistakes happen when a drive is damaged. Corruption can happen because of a virus attack, a break in the read-and-write process, program problems, or damage to the hardware. You can use Disk Utility to try to fix it. To get to that part, click here.

NTFS File System: The drive could be set up to use NTFS. Mac users can only "read" NTFS files; Windows users can "read and write" them. It means that if you use an NTFS drive, you can't write to your external drive on a Mac. To fix it, you can enable writable access with third-party software. To get to that part, click here.

How to Fix the "Read-Only" External Hard Drive on Mac

Let's look at how to fix the problem now that you know why it happens. Here we will introduce some methods to fix the issue in based on different issues.

The first thing you should do is look at the file system type on your external drive. How to do it:

• Connect your portable hard drive to your Mac.
• Start up Disk Utility. You can use Spotlight to look for it. Press Command + Space and type "Disk Utility."
• From the list on the left, choose your external drive.
• In the details part, you can find information about the drive format.

🔹 Method 1. Enable NTFS Writable Access on Mac

If your external hard drive is in NTFS format, the writable access is not supported natively on Mac. Because of this, you can only read the file if the format is NTFS. macOS doesn't have built-in support for writing to NTFS drives.

However, you can enable the NTFS writable support on Mac with a third-party software DoYourData NTFS for Mac. The software offers the reliable and fast NTFS driver that can make NTFS drive writable on Mac.

After installing and run the software it will be very easy to enable NTFS writable support. Just select your NTFS drive in the software and then click the Enable Writable button at the right side. Then you can read and write data on NTFS external hard drive on Mac.

Also, you can format the NTFS drive directly to one of the APFS, HFS+, FAT32 or exFAT file systems so that macOS can read and write. However, ensure to copy and back up the files to another drive before you format the drive, otherwise, the files will be removed.

🔹 Method 2. Change Drive Permissions on macOS:

If your drive isn't formatted to NTFS and you still can't get to it, there might be the permission issue that cause the drive read-only. You can use Finder to change the rights by hand. To make permission changes to an external drive on a Mac, please follow the steps:

Step 1: Open Finder and look at your portable hard drive. Right-click it and select Get Info.

Step 2: To expand these choices, click the switch next to "Sharing & Permissions" at the bottom of the new window.

Step 3: In the Privilege column, click the phrase next to your account (or "everyone") and choose Read & Write.

🔹 Method 3. Format Your Drive

If there are issues with the drive and cause the files read-only, you can fix the issue by formatting.

Don't forget that reformatting will delete all the data on the drive, so make sure you have a copy of your data first. If you cannot even copy the files to back up them, we suggest you first try to recover the files with a Mac data recovery software.

If you ensure the data is backed up or recovered from the external drive first, then you can try to format the drive to fix the issue. It is easy to format a drive on Mac with Disk Utility:

Step 1: Open Disk Utility by going to the Finder, selecting Applications, and finally, Utilities.

Step 2: In the middle pane, click the View button in the upper left area and choose "Show All Devices." To erase the drive, pick it from the list and click the Erase button at the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 3: Name your external drive, select "GUID Partition Map" as the scheme, and select a file system, such as APFS, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or exFAT/FAT32 (if you need cross-platform support). Then, press Erase.

Conclusion

Having an external hard drive that can't be read on your Mac can be annoying, but the tips in this article should help you fix the problem. There is a way to fix everything, whether you need to format the drive, change the rights, or use third-party software.

Don't forget to back up your data before you make any changes, especially when you reset or fix the drive. Following these steps, you can reread and write to your external drive. It will ensure that it works perfectly with your Mac and keep your data safe and available.

FAQs About External Drive Is Ready Only on Mac

1. What are the most common reasons that cause the external hard drive read only on Mac?

Here are the most possible reasons that will lead to the external hard drive becoming read only on Mac:

• The permission of the external hard drive was set to read only.
• File system of the external hard drive is corrupted somehow.
• The format of the external hard drive is NTFS, which are not writable directly on Mac.

2. How to fix the read only issue for external hard drive on Mac?

There are 3 methods that you can try to fix the read only external hard drive on Mac.

• First, check the files system of the external hard drive and confirm if it's NTFS. If the format of the external drive is NTFS, you can use DoYourData NTFS for Mac to enable writable access of the portable drive directly on Mac. It will be safe without data loss.
• Second, you can format NTFS drive or a damaged external drive on Mac to make it writable again. Ensure to select a macOS compatible file system.
• At last, if the there is no problem with the drive and it's compatible with macOS, you can check and change the permission of the drive to make it readable and writable on Mac.

3. How to format an external hard drive on Mac?

To format an portable drive, you can use the system built-in tool Disk Utility:

• Start Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities.
• Select your external disk and click Erase.
• Select the file system, change the name if necessary.
• Click Erase button and start the formatting process.

4. How to change portable drive permission settings on Mac?

• Open Finder and right-click the external drive, and select Get Info.
• Click the switch next to "Sharing & Permissions" at the bottom.
• In the Privilege column, click the phrase next to your account (or "everyone") and choose Read & Write.

5. Steps to enable NTFS writable access for macOS.

Download and install the software on your Mac.

Connect the NTFS drive and run the software.

Select the NTFS drive and click on Enable Writable button.