NTFStore

Read & write NTFS drives on macOS — from a clean menu-bar app.
by Pritish Maheta

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macOS mounts NTFS (Windows-formatted) drives read-only. NTFStore adds full read-write support using a modern, kext-free stack (FUSE-T + ntfs-3g) and gives you a one-click menu-bar control for mounting, unmounting and ejecting.

No kernel extensions. No "Reduced Security". No reboots.

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Features

• ✅ Read & write any NTFS drive
• 🖱️ Menu-bar app — mount / unmount / eject / open in Finder, per drive
• 🧩 Kext-free — built on FUSE-T (no kernel extension, no Recovery Mode)
• 🔒 No password prompts — a scoped sudo NOPASSWD rule for the mount helper only
• 💪 Robust — force-mounts dirty / hibernated (Windows fast-startup) volumes, wins the macOS FSKit auto-mount race, and auto-recovers a drive yanked without ejecting
• 🪶 Light — a tiny Swift app + one shell helper; starts at login
• 🧹 Clean uninstall included

Menu:

NTFStore — Pritish Maheta
──────────────────────────────
🟢 Seagate Pritish — read-write  ▸  Open in Finder
                                     Unmount
                                     Eject (safe to unplug)
──────────────────────────────
Mount all read-write        ⌘M
Refresh                     ⌘R
Quit NTFStore           ⌘Q

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Why NTFStore?

	NTFStore	Paid drivers (Paragon, Tuxera…)	Built-in macOS
Price	Free & open source	Paid	Free
Write to NTFS	✅	✅	❌ read-only
Kernel extension	✅ none (FUSE-T)	often required	—
Reduced Security / reboot	✅ never	sometimes	—
Menu-bar mount / eject	✅	varies	❌
Handles dirty / hibernated drives	✅ force	varies	❌
Auditable code	✅ ~210-line Swift app	❌ closed	—

NTFStore is a thin, transparent wrapper around the battle-tested open-source ntfs-3g driver running on kext-free FUSE-T — no black boxes, no kernel code, no subscription.

Requirements

• macOS 12+ (built and tested on macOS 26, Apple Silicon)
• Homebrew
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)

Install

git clone <this-repo> NTFStore
cd NTFStore
./install.sh

The installer will:

1. Install FUSE-T and ntfs-3g via Homebrew
2. Build the libfuse.2.dylib shim so ntfs-3g uses FUSE-T
3. Install the privileged mount helper + a scoped sudo NOPASSWD rule
4. Build & install NTFStore.app and set it to start at login

You'll be asked for your password once. The first mount may ask you to approve FUSE-T in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Usage

1. Plug in an NTFS drive.
2. Click the 🖴 NTFS icon in the menu bar.
3. Hover your drive → Mount read-write.
4. When done, Eject (safe to unplug) before pulling the cable.

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh          # remove NTFStore
./uninstall.sh --all    # also remove the FUSE-T & ntfs-3g Homebrew packages

Troubleshooting

Run the built-in doctor — it checks the whole stack and prints the fix for anything wrong:

./scripts/doctor.sh

Every issue encountered building this (and its fix) is documented in docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md — symptom → cause → fix, plus a full engineering findings log and a "full reset" procedure. You shouldn't have to debug anything from scratch.

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How it works (short version)

macOS 26's built-in FSKit driver mounts NTFS read-only. NTFStore mounts it read-write with ntfs-3g running over FUSE-T (a userspace, NFS-based FUSE implementation — no kernel extension). Because ntfs-3g was built for macFUSE, a small version-patched, re-signed copy of FUSE-T's library is installed at /usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib so ntfs-3g loads FUSE-T instead.

Mounting must run as root (to open the raw device) and from your login session (so the FUSE-T mount persists) — so the menu-bar app calls a root-owned helper via a scoped passwordless sudo rule. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full design and the hard-won macOS-26 lessons.

What gets installed

Path	What
/Applications/NTFStore.app	The menu-bar app
/usr/local/sbin/ntfs-mount-rw.sh	Privileged one-shot mount helper
/usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib	FUSE-T shim (version-patched)
/etc/sudoers.d/ntfstore	NOPASSWD rule for the helper (your user only)
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ntfstore.app.plist	Start at login
Homebrew: fuse-t (cask), ntfs-3g-mac	The engine
/var/log/ntfstore.log	Mount log

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Caveats

• NTFS-via-ntfs-3g is reliable but not Apple-blessed — eject cleanly and keep backups.
• The sudo rule is scoped to the single mount-helper path and validates its argument.
• Apple Silicon + macOS 26 is the tested target; other configs should work but are unverified.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. NTFStore bundles/uses FUSE-T and ntfs-3g, which carry their own licenses.