How To Use Macdrive New! May 2026

That’s when I discovered MacDrive. Here is the story of how I used it to bridge the unbridgeable. I went to the Mediafour website and downloaded MacDrive Pro. The installer was straightforward—no sketchy adware, just a clean wizard. After clicking through the license agreement, it asked for a system reboot.

I had MacDrive in "read-only" mode (the default for safety). I needed write access. I right-clicked the MacDrive icon in my system tray (the little purple circle near the clock) and selected "MacDrive Settings." how to use macdrive

MacDrive works on a simple principle: You don’t need to do anything special. Windows natively uses NTFS or exFAT; MacDrive adds the missing puzzle piece: HFS+ (the old Mac format) and APFS (the new Mac format, from High Sierra onward). From that moment, my PC treated the Mac drive like a native Windows drive. Chapter 3: The Disaster (When Read-Only Isn't Enough) A week later, disaster struck. I was on a deadline. My MacBook Pro’s screen died (logic board failure). On that Mac’s internal SSD was the final draft of a client video. I pulled the SSD out, put it in a USB enclosure, and plugged it into my PC. That’s when I discovered MacDrive

But I still got permission errors on some folders. That’s because macOS uses Unix permissions. My Windows user account didn’t match my Mac user account (e.g., "Johns-Mac" vs "JOHNS-PC\John"). I needed write access

Here’s the secret trick I learned: I right-clicked the problem folder on the Mac drive, selected → "Security" tab. Suddenly, MacDrive added new options. I clicked "Change Permissions" and gave "Everyone" full control temporarily. That unlocked everything. Chapter 5: The Advanced Magic (APFS & Compression) Not all Mac drives are the same. My new MacBook Pro uses APFS (Apple File System). Older versions of MacDrive had limited APFS write support. But MacDrive Pro (version 11+ fully supports APFS writing).

Here’s where it got truly magical: I had an APFS drive that was encrypted with FileVault. Windows saw it as a raw partition. I double-clicked the drive in File Explorer, and a MacDrive password box appeared. I typed my FileVault password. The drive unlocked and mounted instantly. I could read and write encrypted APFS volumes without ever touching a Mac. The story has one dark chapter. One night, tired and careless, I yanked the USB cable out of my PC while a file was still copying to the Mac drive. The next time I plugged it into my Mac, macOS screamed: "Disk not ejected properly." Disk Utility had to repair the volume. I lost 30 minutes of work.

Under the tab, I found my drive. There was a checkbox: "Enable write support for this drive." I checked it. A warning popped up: "Writing to Mac drives can cause data loss if ejected improperly." I acknowledged it like a responsible adult.