Saving files to with a mac.

[Florida_Bear]

Hi Everyone, If I connect an external hard drive to my mac or a usb stick I cant drop any files or pictures to them or from my mac to the drives?
Ive tried the get info and unlock but this doesn't solve the issue?
Its recent thing and has always worked in the past?
Any help would be great. t.i.a Ted

[mike4scuba]

Does it come up with a cross in a circle when you try it maybe because the external drive is in NTFS format
Try this. Be warned any info on the storage device will be wiped. Also remove any other external hard drives that are connected to the mac to prevent them being erased accidently


Format The USB Disk With ExFat File Format.

The main reason for this issue is macOS can only read NTFS format files but can not write files to NTFS disk. So if the USB disk is NTFS format, then the copy and paste operation can not be operated. So you should change the USB Disk file format to others such as FAT or ExFAT. And ExFat is a more good choice.

1.1 Change USB Disk File Format Steps.
Open macOS Finder —> Applications —> Utilities —> Disk Utility.
double-click-disk-utility-app
Select the USB disk in the left panel.
mac-os-use-disk-utility-to-change-usb-disk-format
Then click the Erase button at the top of the right panel. Select ExFAT in the Format drop-down list and begin to format.
mac-os-use-disk-utility-to-change-usb-disk-format-to-extfat
After the format process complete successfully, you can copy files from macOS to USB disk successfully.

If you are put off by doing this then have a look online for osx to mac converter. Most have limited trails so you can test and make sure it rectifes your error before commiting to purchase.
Paragon software is good and allows a 10 free trial

Hope this has helped

[Florida_Bear]

Mike, Thats great thanks, but I don't want to erase whats on the external hard drives or usb sticks... thanks again..