I have an external drive that was formatted on a Windows PC and my Mac can read the files but won’t let me copy anything to it. I noticed there are a bunch of paid NTFS apps out there, but I’m wondering if they’re actually necessary. Is there a free way to use an NTFS drive on a Mac or is buying one of these apps the only option?
That’s normal with NTFS. macOS can read NTFS, but it can’t write to it by default. You don’t have to buy an app. There are open-source options too, although they’re more involved to set up. NTFS-3G is one option, and it uses macFUSE on macOS.
I’d go with exFAT if you don’t need to keep the drive as NTFS. It’s a good fit for a drive you use between Windows and Mac. Apple has the details here if you want to check before wiping the drive. Just don’t reformat it until you’ve copied the files somewhere else. Reformatting it will wipe the drive.
So I checked the drive and yeah, it is NTFS. I don’t actually need anything NTFS-specific. I was mostly hoping there was some setting on the Mac I was missing 
Nope, that’s why you can’t copy files back to it. Keeping NTFS means using some kind of third-party NTFS software for write access. Otherwise, move the files off the drive and reformat it as exFAT.
If you don’t want to install anything on the Mac, another option is just plugging the drive into the Windows PC when you need to add files. You can also move the files over a shared folder on your network if both computers are connected. Not as convenient, but it avoids messing with the NTFS setup on the Mac.
I’d be careful with some of the older NTFS-3G tutorials, though. Some of them have you replacing macOS’s NTFS mounting tool just to get write access. The docs actually warn about the security implications of doing that, so I’d stay away from those old guides.
That pretty much answers it. I don’t need to keep NTFS, so I’ll move the files off the drive and reformat it as exFAT. Good to know there are other options if I ever need to keep NTFS, though so tnx!!