Writing files to an NTFS volume in OSX using VMware Fusion

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This is more of a quick tip than the usual full blog posts I do, but a useful one none the less (at least for me). By default when you plug an NTFS (Windows) volume into an Apple Mac, you are able to read the volume, but not write to it. There are ways to forcefully allow NTFS writes, but for those who do not wish to mess with system settings and are using VMware Fusion, this may come in handy.

  • Make sure your Windows VM is powered on and booted, then your plug external USB drive with the NTFS formatted volume into Mac
  • When prompted, choose to connect the drive to your Windows VM
  • Make sure you have a folder from your Mac shared to your Windows VM (e.g. Documents) through Fusion

 

  • Place any files you would like to write to your NTFS volume in your shared folder on your Mac (e.g. Documents folder)
  • Using your Windows VM, open explorer, navigate to the shared folder presented to Windows via Fusion, find the files you want to copy, and then copy/paste them to your NTFS volume that has been passed through and mounted on your Windows VM
  • As Windows is doing the writing it will of course allow writes to the NTFS volume which has been passed through from the Mac

 

2 thoughts on “Writing files to an NTFS volume in OSX using VMware Fusion”

  1. Here is my question. I have a Thunderbolt external drive (formatted to NTFS using a PC) attached to my iMac. I only want to use it on the Windows side (using VMWare Fusion), however permissions don’t allow for writing to the drive. Suggestions?

  2. I needed to do just this. Copy files to an external volume. However I copied them directly across from my Mac OSX to the external volume. And this has filled up my windows volume even though I didn’t copy the files to that specific volume. Why is this and how can I fix it?

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