Connect, then get going.

Installed Volisle from the Mac App Store? See App Store version help.

Getting started

1. Follow the setup guideThe first time you open Volisle, a setup guide walks you through three steps: allow Volisle in the background, turn on its file system extension (“Volisle NTFS” in the File System Extensions list), and allow it to read disks (Full Disk Access). Each step’s button opens the right page in System Settings; turn on the switch as described and the guide ticks it off automatically. If you close the guide, you can finish under Setup in Settings.
2. Connect a diskConnect an NTFS external drive or USB flash drive. Volisle checks it in the background and turns on write access when it passes; the sidebar shows “Read-write”.
3. Use it as usualCreate, edit, save, move, or delete files in Finder and your other apps.
4. EjectEject the disk in Volisle or Finder before unplugging it. If you’re told the disk is in use, quit the app using it first.

If a disk is read-only

Select the disk and click “Can’t write? Check why”: Volisle checks each condition write access needs—the background component, Full Disk Access, the file system extension, the disk itself, and why the last attempt failed—and shows what to do for each, often with a button that does it. You can also follow the message at the bottom of the window:

• The top of the window says one step is left and the file system extension is off: open System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions → File System Extensions and turn on “Volisle NTFS”. You can ignore the “FSKit Modules” switch under Volisle on the By App page, even if it won’t turn on. No restart is needed—reconnect the disk or click Refresh in Volisle.
• It wasn’t ejected safely from Windows last time: connect the disk to Windows, open it once, eject it with “Safely Remove Hardware” in the taskbar, then reconnect it to your Mac.
• Windows is hibernated or using Fast Startup: fully shut down that Windows PC, then reconnect the disk to your Mac.
• The disk needs a check: in Windows, open the disk’s Properties → Tools → Check, then eject it safely when it’s done. Without a Windows PC, choose “Check on This Mac…” next to the message: Volisle reads every file and folder record and clears the mark and turns on write access only if nothing is wrong. It isn’t the same as a full disk check in Windows; for important data without a backup, check it in Windows first. If it says the file records have a problem, the disk really needs a Windows disk check; you can still open and copy its files read-only, and without a Windows PC you can run the check in a Windows virtual machine on your Mac with the disk connected to it. If it says part of the disk couldn’t be read, try another cable or port first.

Other messages:

• The disk was disconnected while being written to: when it’s connected again, Volisle first returns it to its consistent state from before the disconnection, then turns on write access. If the message says the safety check before doing so didn’t pass, the disk stays read-only, nothing was changed, and you can still copy its files; export diagnostics and send them to us. If it says Volisle couldn’t finish restoring it this time, unplug it and connect it again.
• Write-protected: unlock the write-protect switch on the disk or card reader, then connect the disk again.
• Couldn’t mount with write access: restart your Mac and connect the disk again. If it keeps happening, export diagnostics in Settings → Support and tell us through the feedback page below.
• Volisle’s file system extension quit unexpectedly: the disk can’t be read, written, or ejected until you restart your Mac. Save your other work, restart, then connect the disk again; Volisle returns it to its last consistent state (changes from about the last 20 seconds before the extension quit are undone).
• The file system extension didn’t turn on writing: check the write-protect switch on the disk or card reader. If the disk was unplugged while writing last time, connect it to Windows, open it once, eject it safely, and connect it again.

If the disk disconnected unexpectedly while writing on your Mac, Volisle recovers it automatically the next time it connects—there’s nothing to do.

If the disk was unplugged during a copy

The disk itself needs nothing: when you connect it again, Volisle returns it to its consistent state from about 20 seconds before the unplug and turns writing back on. But the copy in progress stops, and files that finished copying in those last 20 seconds are rolled back too:

• Copies made by Volisle (recommended): on a disk with write access, choose Copy to This Disk… or drag items into the Volisle window. After an unplug, an eject or quitting Volisle, once the disk is back with write access, Volisle checks what was already copied and continues on its own, copying again anything that was rolled back.
• Copies made in Finder: after reconnecting, drag the same items again. When Finder says an item already exists, Skip only what you know finished; the file that was being copied when you unplugged holds only its beginning, so choose Replace for it. If this copy was replacing older files on the disk, or you aren’t sure, choose Replace for all: otherwise an incomplete file or an old version may stay.
• Many or large files: in Terminal, run rsync -a --progress source-folder/ destination-folder/. After reconnecting, run the same command again: it skips files that finished and copies only the rest (the interrupted file starts over).

Eject before unplugging whenever you can.

Erasing as NTFS

From the More menu at the top right, choose “Erase Disk…”, pick an external USB disk, then erase the whole disk (GUID or MBR partition map) or a single Windows data partition, enter a name, and confirm. Erasing deletes all data and can’t be undone; internal disks, the startup disk, and disks with a mounted Mac volume aren’t offered. Afterward the disk can be read and written on Windows and Mac.

BitLocker-encrypted disks

When connected, the disk appears in the sidebar as “BitLocker · Locked”. Select it, enter the password—or switch to Recovery Key and enter the 48 digits—then click Unlock. Finder opens, and you can copy, change and delete files as on any disk. When you’re done, click Lock or eject it in Finder before unplugging; if it’s unplugged anyway, the next unlock first rolls back writes from about the last 20 seconds before the unplug. A disk that needs a check, comes from a hibernated Windows, or wasn’t ejected safely last time opens read-only, with the reason shown; check a BitLocker disk in Windows (“Check on This Mac” is for regular NTFS disks only). Recovery keys are usually saved in your Microsoft account (aka.ms/myrecoverykey), on a printout, or in the file you saved when you turned on BitLocker. The password is used only for that unlock and isn’t saved. If Windows is still encrypting or decrypting the disk, wait until it finishes and try again. Windows 7’s default “AES with Diffuser” encryption isn’t supported; Volisle says so when you unlock.

FAQ

Exporting diagnostics

In Settings → Support, choose “Export Diagnostics…”, or export from “Can’t write? Check why”. The report contains system and component status, the kinds of external disks and how they’re connected, how the last 20 disk operations ended, and Volisle’s activity from the last 24 hours with paths, names and disk identifiers removed—no volume names, full paths, or file contents. You can preview it before saving; attached to a problem report, it usually shows where things stopped without back-and-forth questions.

Reporting a problem

To report a problem or suggest something, use the feedback page on GitHub (a GitHub account is required). Include your macOS version, your Volisle version, and the message shown in the window; an exported diagnostics report helps most. Please check it before posting and leave out personal information such as volume names and file paths.

Updates

Volisle checks for updates automatically, and you can also check manually in Settings. Before installing an update, it safely ends disk writes, and it waits while a disk is in use.

Uninstall

1. Eject disksEject all NTFS disks in Volisle or Finder.
2. Turn off open at loginOpen Settings (⌘,) and, under General, turn off “Open Volisle at login”.
3. Remove the componentIn Settings → Support, expand “NTFS Engine” and click “Remove Component”. Background Component should then show “Not set up”.
4. Delete the appQuit Volisle (⌘Q) and drag Volisle from Applications to the Trash.

After these steps, Volisle no longer runs in the background and its file system extension disappears from System Settings. Files on your disks aren’t affected, and macOS can still open NTFS disks read-only.

Remove everything (optional)

macOS keeps a few small settings and cache files (under 1 MB in total), which don’t affect anything. To delete them too, first make sure every NTFS disk was ejected normally the last time it was used: the recovery records for interrupted writes live here, and once they’re deleted, automatic recovery is no longer possible. Then press ⇧⌘G in Finder and go to and delete each of these:

• ~/Library/Containers/top.qisw.volisle.filesystem
• ~/Library/Application Scripts/top.qisw.volisle.filesystem
• ~/Library/Preferences/top.qisw.volisle.plist
• ~/Library/Caches/top.qisw.volisle
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/top.qisw.volisle

The background component also leaves an empty lock file in a system folder. To remove it, run this command in Terminal (you’ll be asked for an administrator password):

sudo rm -r /private/var/db/volisle