Passport for Mac won’t let me transfer files

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

I purchase a WD after my external drive broke. I have a Mac so I got the Passport for a Mac and it seems to back up with no problem , however it won’t let me transfer files from the Mac onto the drive. This is why I bought it , to be able to transfer files but it’s not working at all . Can anyone help?

Thanks

2

Hi @missd26,

“Mac OS Compatible” My Passport, My Book and WD EasyStore drives formatted with NTFS will mount as a Read-Only file system when connected to a macOS computer.

For more information on how to format your drive, please refer to the link below.
Reformatting required for Mac OS Compatibility:

3

Hello , thank you for your reply. The passport is APFS format, not NTFS. It says APFS case sensitive. Do I still need to reformat it the same way as you suggested?

Thanks

4

When your external drive or any storage drive shows up as “Read Only” on your mac, then you might be encountering a very common problem with the hard drive. In such a situation, the user can open and view the files on a drive but cannot copy or move files to the storage drive. The possible reasons for this issue could be:

  1. External drive is NTFS formatted
  2. Disk permission changed as “Read Only”
  3. External drive is corrupted

However, the issue can be fixed using below DIY methods:

  1. Reformat the external drive
  2. Change/Ignore permissions on an external drive
  3. Repair external drive with disk utility’s first aid

Hope this will help you fix the issue!

5

Yes, you need to reformat it, but the issue isn’t the file system—it’s likely a hidden Time Machine setting. Because the drive is actively backing up your Mac, Time Machine has likely locked it.

In modern macOS, Time Machine formats drives as APFS (Case-Sensitive) and blocks you from manually dragging and dropping files onto them.

1. If you want to keep your backups AND store files:

Open Disk Utility, select your WD drive, and click the Volume (+) button at the top.

Name it “My Files” and set the format to standard APFS (not case-sensitive).

This creates a second, open folder on the drive without erasing your backups.

Also read: [Tutorial]How to Add APFS Volume to Container on Mac

2.If you ONLY want to transfer files (and delete the backups):

Go to System Settings > Time Machine and stop the drive from backing up. Then, open Disk Utility, click Erase on the drive, and format it as standard APFS (or ExFAT if you need it to work on Windows PCs too).