mouNTFS (pronounced "maun-tee-ef-es") helps you write to NTFS (pronounced "en-tee-ef-es") drives on your Mac. No more "read-only" frustration! Just select your drive, provide your password to confirm, and you're ready to go - with native macOS dialogs that feel right at home.

Currently, mouNTFS is just one simple shell script that does one thing well - mounting NTFS drives with write access. We keep it clean and focused.

🤝 This project is an experiment in human-AI collaboration, co-developed with AI buddies. 🤖 All code is written by AI, with 👤 humans focusing on design, review, and direction - no direct human coding. 🥳 This must be a fun ride, and let's see where it goes.

• 🤖 Co-developed with AI buddies
• 📁 Native file picker for volume selection
• 🔐 Secure password handling through system dialog
• 📊 Detailed volume information:
  • Volume name and device path
  • Current usage and total size
  • File system and mount status
• 🔄 Automatic fallback between mount methods
• ✅ Write access verification

The script safely handles NTFS mounting by first unmounting the volume, then trying the mount_ntfs with read-write option. If that fails, it falls back to the more reliable ntfs-3g. After mounting, it verifies write access and uses native macOS dialogs throughout the process.

• macOS - so that you lose NTFS read-write access
• Homebrew - to install macFUSE and ntfs-3g, and a lot of cool stuff for macOS 🍺
• macFUSE - FUSE file system support for macOS
• ntfs-3g - NTFS driver with write support (macOS version)

0. Make sure you have Homebrew installed.

1. Install macFUSE and ntfs-3g-mac:

brew install --cask macfuse
brew install gromgit/fuse/ntfs-3g-mac

2. Download mountfs.sh:

cd ~/Downloads  # or any directory you won't get lost
curl -L -o mountfs.sh https://get.mountfs.sh
chmod +x mountfs.sh

3. Configure security settings:
   • Trust macFUSE library in Settings → Privacy & Security (signed by "Benjamin Fleischer")
   • macFUSE needs a kernel extension to be enabled, which requires a system restart
   • Grant disk access when prompted

Note: These security settings are required by macOS to allow third-party file system drivers. They only need to be configured once, unless you uninstall or reinstall the drivers.

Refer to macFUSE wiki for more details.

1. Launch:

   • Double-click mountfs.sh in Finder, OR
   • Run in terminal ./mountfs.sh

2. Select Volume:

   • Choose your NTFS volume in the native file picker
   • Non-NTFS volumes will be automatically rejected

3. Review & Confirm:

   • Check volume information
   • Confirm the mount operation

4. Authenticate:

   • Enter administrator password in the popup dialog

• Requires administrator privileges for mounting
• Performs safe unmount before remounting
• Verifies write access after mounting
• Uses the best available mount method

If mounting fails:

1. Ensure the volume is NTFS formatted
2. Check macFUSE and ntfs-3g installation
3. Try safely ejecting and reconnecting
4. Check system logs for errors

• Mounty - Popular free GUI app for NTFS mounting
• NTFS for Mac by Paragon - Commercial solution with full NTFS support
• Tuxera NTFS - Another commercial driver with high performance
• Feel free to explore other alternatives!

mouNTFS focuses on simplicity and native macOS integration while remaining free and open source. We ❤️ open source!

• GUI interface with native macOS look and feel
• Better error messages and recovery options
• System tray integration for quick access
• Volume monitoring for automatic mounting
• Localization support for multiple languages

Contributions and suggestions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or pull requests.

As a human-AI collaboration project:

• For code contributions, please bring your AI buddy and keep the no-direct-human-coding spirit
• For other contributions (docs, testing, reviews, etc.), both humans and AI buddies are more than welcome!

Given wide-spread AI concerns, safety review is welcome.

MIT License © 2024 Quan Guo