{"id":192081,"date":"2026-02-15T20:37:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/?p=192081"},"modified":"2026-02-15T20:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:37:06","slug":"changing-the-hard-drive-read-only-permission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/2026\/02\/15\/changing-the-hard-drive-read-only-permission\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the hard drive \u201cread-only\u201d permission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These days, saving stuff in the cloud is popular, but using external SSDs or hard drives, flash drives or USB sticks is just as common. The problem is that sometimes, these latter options might have a read-only message. You can\u2019t write onto the device, you can only read from it, which could prove to be quite the issue. And here\u2019s why that happens, and how you can fix this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What leads to the read-only issue?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Generally, there are 2 main reasons why you encounter this read-only error. For example, the drive was formatted in a way that does not allow your Mac to write on it. NTFS is a format that might end up doing that on a Mac. It can also happen if you are switching from an older Intel Mac to Apple Silicon as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another situation is when you have permission settings not set up properly. They could lock you to just reading the stuff and not writing, which is naturally a problem that you want to tackle. With that being said, the format type matters, NTFS is a problem on a Mac, whereas FAT 32<\/a>, Mac OS Extended or APFS are usually ok. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fixing the read-only issue on your hard drive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Reformatting the drive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Reformatting is usually a last-resort thing as you are wiping all the data from the device. And naturally, that means reinstalling all the apps. You need to create a backup for this thing when possible, mainly because it offers you the means to integrate new stuff, and it will help convey a better experience going forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, reformatting does help if you also have all kinds of other issues, and it makes sense to approach it when that happens. Making sure that you are formatting the drive from time to time will help quite a lot, especially if you have the read-only problem. But as we said, it\u2019s mostly a last-resort solution here, as you can solve permission problems in other ways as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to reformat the drive, do the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n