How to read and write ntfs drive on macOS for free?

Hey!

NTFS-3G is a free and open-source driver that allows Mac users to read and write to NTFS drives. While it is easy to install and use, some users have reported slower transfer speeds and occasional issues with file permissions. NTFS-3G is a good option for basic read and write access, but paid solutions like Paragon NTFS for Mac may be more reliable and feature-rich.

Each of these apps have it own pros and cons. Here is a good article about NTFS for Mac:

NTFS for macOS: Everything You Need to Know

Hope it helps!

It is much better to format drives you are sharing with a Windows system by using Disk Utility to erase them as GUID partition and exFAT. exFAT is supported by macOS and does not require any extra third party drivers which may break after a macOS update or upgrade. A year ago a macOS update broke third party NTFS drivers for several months which left users without being able to access their NTFS volumes...even Safe Mode could not be used to allow the use of the built-in macOS NTFS read-only driver due to the third party software reconfiguring macOS to only utilize the third party driver as a default (yes, it was possible to manually mount the drives using the command line, but that is not easy, straightforward, or convenient for most users). Only one of the third party developers even provided an unofficial beta driver....all the others just pointed fingers at Apple while Apple pointed fingers at the developers of the third party drivers. All the while users had no idea who was going to fix things or when. Just something to keep in mind.

If you only use the external drive with a Mac, then erase it as GUID partition & MacOS Extended (Journaled) if the drive is to be used with older Macs as well or if the external drive is a hard drive. Or erase the drive as GUID partition and APFS (top option) if it will only be used with macOS 10.13+ and the drive is an SSD. Make sure to have a backup of the data on the drive before erasing since erasing a drive destroys all data on a drive. You should always have a backup of important & unique data which is stored on external drives.