Just installed NTFS for Mac on my iMac M3. It caused all sorts of problems including having to re-install my system! Do I really need it?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Installing NTFS app!
iMac 24″, macOS 15.5
Only if for some reason a drive you're accessing is in Microsoft's NTFS format, and you need to leave it that way.
If the intent is to share an external drive between Mac and Windows, reformat the drive as ExFAT. Then either OS can read/write the drive without the need for any third party software.
Drives formatted with NTFS are read-only on macOS. Drives formatted as exFAT are readable/writeable on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
You do not need the headache of installing NTFS for Mac if your goal is simply reading NTFS formatted drives, or using a more universal choice of formatting as in the second sentence above.
What VikingOSX said.
You can read NTFS formatted drives without any extra software. You just cannot write them.
If you really need to move files between Windows and macOS, then format the external drive exFAT, as both macOS and Windows and read/write exFAT formatted drives without any extra software needed.
If you just purchased an external drive for your Mac, and it came formatted NTFS, and you have no intention of using with with Windows, then reformat it to Apple's APFS file system format via Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
NOTE: Reformatting a drive will erase all the existing data on the drive, so if it is important data, copy it somewhere else before you do the reformat.
Do I really need NTFS for my iMac?
