No matter your operating system of choice, external hard drives tin exist useful in many situations. Whether you lot need to move a few files to some other system or want to do a quick backup, it can never injure to have a few of them effectually.

But an external difficult drive is simply convenient when you can employ it. If you're facing permission-related issues or tin can't add files because the hard drive is locked, then the whole use of a difficult bulldoze is defeated. This isn't ofttimes a major problem, and more often than not, it's simple to solve.

What Does Information technology Mean When a Difficult Drive Is Locked on Your Mac?

The concept of unlocking an external hard drive on a Mac may not be familiar to you. This is partially because information technology can refer to a few dissimilar problems:

  1. The bulldoze is gear up to read-only permissions, then you can't add or delete files.
  2. The external hard drive uses a partially supported file system, like NTFS, which macOS only supports every bit read-only.
  3. The drive is encrypted, significant you lot can't access it in any way until you've decrypted the disk.

How to Unlock a Hard Bulldoze on macOS

Now you lot know the probable reasons for the locked drive, let's explore the steps you can take to fix these problems.

Control-click the drive icon in Finder, then select Get Info. In the Sharing and Permissions section, click the Lock button in the lesser-right corner and type in your username and password. And then, check Ignore buying on this volume. By doing this, your Mac treats all the files on the disk equally though they're owned past the electric current user, no matter who actually owns them.

check ignore ownership on this volume for external hard drive

If this is a drive you last formatted, yous tin can change the individual permissions in the box above. This lets you change the permissions to Read & Write for yourself while keeping the drive read-but for other users. Here'south a guide on macOS disk permissions to assistance you understand the technical concepts.

2. Decrypt the External Hard Drive

To unlock an encrypted difficult drive, Control-click the drive icon in the main Finder view or the sidebar. In the menu that pops upwardly, select Decrypt "Drive Name" and enter the password. This only works if you know the password. And if y'all don't, yous can still format the drive, which we'll detail a little further downwards.

3. Fix Read-Only External Difficult Drive Issue

Is your external hard drive showing up as "read only" on your Mac? This happens because the drive is formatted with Microsoft's NTFS file format. On macOS, you can only read disks in this format, not write to them. As a consequence, you won't be able to add, alter, or delete files.

If y'all've bought an external hard drive from Seagate, it comes with Paragon Driver to allow yous read and write data interchangeably on Windows and Mac without formatting the drive. There are two carve up versions listed on the Seagate site, ane for macOS 10.10 to 10.xv, and another for the Macs running the M1 bit.

paragon drivers for seagate drive offers great compatibility between Windows and Mac

For other drives, they'll virtually likely utilise exFAT, which has no realistic file or partition size limits, or they'll require complicated ACLs and file attribution system like NTFS. In the event of a crash, you lot might lose data.

Note: Mac computers with Apple tree silicon must change the startup disk security settings to "Reduced Security" for the software to part properly. To do this, outset your Mac in macOS Recovery. Choose Utilities > Startup Security Utility and change the security policy.

How to Format an External Hard Drive for Mac

Now that you know how to unlock your external bulldoze, you're prepare to format it for employ on your Mac. Before you go on, be enlightened that this will erase all the information on the drive. Unless you're positive that yous don't need any data, y'all should back it upward first.

You lot should as well consider how you're going to use the drive. Unlike file systems are better for certain tasks, so you'll need to select the correct file system for your needs. If you're unsure, take a look at our rundown of the all-time Mac file systems for external drives.

Open up the Disk Utility app. In the left panel, y'all'll run across the listing of internal and external drives separately. Now choose View > Show All Devices to meet the storage devices at the peak level, containers, and finally any volumes in each container.

Select the external storage device (not the container or volumes it contains). From the toolbar, click Erase. Type in the disk name, so select your preferred selection for both Format and Sectionalization Scheme. By default, the pick is ready to APFS and GUID Partition Map Scheme. When the reformatting is finished, click Done. At last, click the Eject button next to the volume in the sidebar.

choose a file format for external hard drive through disk utility

Naming the option Erase makes it obvious that the process deletes your data, but this adds confusion in another way. If you're looking at how to format an external difficult drive for Mac, y'all may not exist looking for an option named "erase."

How to Lock a Hard Drive on a Mac

If you lot're wondering how to lock an external difficult drive on a Mac, it'south roughly similar to unlocking it. To render a bulldoze read-only, Control-click the drive, so select Get Info. Here, uncheck Ignore ownership on this volume at the bottom of the window.

In the Sharing & Permissions section, change Read & Write to Read only for each category you wish to modify. This will prevent unwanted users or groups from deleting, adding, or irresolute files on the drive.

It's unproblematic to encrypt an external difficult drive on Mac. Control-click the bulldoze, and so select Encrypt "DriveName" on the drive. Choose a countersign, type it over again, and leave a password hint. Then click Encrypt Deejay and wait for the process to complete.

encrypt external hard drive Mac

External Drives Not Showing Upward?

Most of us use external hard drives from time to fourth dimension. If you only apply Mac computers in your habitation, chances are y'all're not going to confront any issues. You just have to exist careful about Time Machine backup compatibility.

However, if you use a Mac at dwelling house and a Windows PC in the office, the best option is either exFAT or Seagate drives. Simply at times, the external hard drive may not show upwards altogether. Luckily, there is a long list of troubleshooting steps you can follow to set these issues.

External Hard Drive Not Showing Upwards on Mac? Here's How to Ready It

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Virtually The Author

Rahul Saigal (181 Articles Published)

With his Thousand.Optom Degree in Eye Care Speciality, Rahul worked as a lecturer for many years in the college. Writing and teaching others is e'er his passion. He at present writes nigh technology and make it digestible for readers who don't sympathise it well.

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