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mouNTFS

License: MIT Built-with-AI Website

What's mouNTFS

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.

Features

  • 🤖 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

Under the Hood

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.

Getting Started

Requirements

  • 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)

Installation

  1. Make sure you have Homebrew installed.

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

brew install --cask macfuse
brew install gromgit/fuse/ntfs-3g-mac
  1. 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
  1. 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.

Usage

  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

Using mouNTFS

Notes

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

Troubleshooting

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

Alternatives

  • 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!

Information

Roadmap

  • 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

Contribution

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.

Contributors

🤖 AI 👤 Humans
🦾 Claude (3.5 Sonnet, via Cursor)
🧠 GPT (GPT-4o)		 🐰 guoquan

License

MIT License © 2024 Quan Guo