ExtendFS is a read-only ext2, ext3, and ext4 driver for macOS using FSKit. It's plug-and-play, with no kernel extension, external download, or messing with system security settings required. ext4 is one of the most common filesystem formats used by HDDs, SSDs, and USB flash drives formatted on Linux, such as by Ubuntu users. However, ext4 isn't supported by default on macOS and results in an error when you plug one of these devices into your Mac. ExtendFS solves this problem. Enabling the file system extension is easy and only requires you to enable a toggle in System Settings (no rebooting into recovery mode). Once enabled, you can plug in your ext4-formatted drive or open your disk image. Supported volumes will mount automatically, with no command line tools or manual mounting required. Just open the disk in the Finder to access your Linux files. Note that ExtendFS does not support write access to ext2/3/4 volumes and cannot write to files. You can only access files on an existing ext2/3/4 volume created by a Linux computer. Not all ext2/3/4 volumes are currently supported. Please see the "Known Limitations" listed under the website first. ExtendFS is open source with its source code available on GitHub. It is available here on the App Store if you want to support its development.
| Size | 1.9 MB |
|---|---|
| Initial release | |
| Price | $14.99 |
| Platforms | Mac |
| Languages | English, French, Chinese, and Spanish |
| Category | Utilities |
| Website | apps.kpchew.com/extendfs |
| Compatibility | |
|---|---|
| Mac | Requires macOS 15.6 or later. |
App's data is regularly updated.
Last update:
- Hash tree directories are now fully supported. In ext3 or ext4 volumes, a file lookup can use the hash tree to make an initial lookup faster, especially in a directory containing many items. - Various other performance improvements. - The `inline_data` feature, where a volume can have small files or directories with its data embedded in the inode, is now supported for reading. - ExtendFS now supports reading files whose name is not encoded in UTF-8. However, note that while ExtendFS may support this, many parts of macOS may not support file names that aren't valid UTF-8. For example, such files might not appear in the Finder or other user-facing programs at all. However, you should be able to read them via terminal commands. - Fix an issue where large files on an ext2 volume might not be readable. - Fix an issue on volumes with the `csum_seed` feature enabled where file reads might fail or directories might incorrectly appear to be empty. - Fix an issue where reads on a sparse file might fail with an input/output error. - ext2, ext3, and ext4 volumes mounted by ExtendFS are now marked as "true" read-only volumes. Among other improvements, this means that options such as creating new folders and deleting files (which did not do anything if selected) no longer appear in the Finder. This fix requires both updating ExtendFS and updating to macOS 26.5 or later.
