Do we know the status (Oct 2025) of the exFAT external drive problems that began in Sonoma? Last night I leap-frogged my M1 Mac Mini from macOS VENTURA to Tahoe. I deferred that long because I did NOT want to deal with the headaches others were reporting when Sonoma / Sequoia came online. Complaints have greatly diminished over the past 12 months...is this issue mostly resolved?
Mac mini, macOS 26.0
Looks like Apple changed the way the exFAT support code worked in Sonoma.
macOS Sonoma 14 Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation, which says
"The implementations of the exfat and msdos file systems on macOS have changed; these file systems are now provided by services running in user-space instead of by kernel extensions. If the application has explicit checks or support for either the exfat or msdos file systems, validate the applications with those file systems and report any issues."
It was a problem with mounting exFAT drives. Not displaying them; seeming loss of data, etc. You seem to indicate this is no longer an issue -- which is great news!
If "fixed," Apple stayed silent about it.
The issue started with Sonoma:
https://www.google.com/search?q=macos+exfat+problem+sonoma
Thank you for your responses - surprised respondents had not heard of this.
It was a problem with mounting exFAT drives. Not displaying them; seeming loss of data, etc. Answers to post seem to indicate this is no longer an issue -- which is great news!
If "fixed," Apple stayed silent about it.
The issue started with Sonoma:
As much as I tried, I could never create an "ExFAT issue" in Sonoma. I haven't bothered trying to make it not work in Tahoe. I don't have any idea why I have no problems, but I suspect it is because I don't use any system modifications on my Macs.
Bill from Maryland wrote:
The issue started with Sonoma:
https://www.google.com/search?q=macos+exfat+problem+sonoma
Google your make/model of car and 'transmission problems'. Thousands of hits, if not tens of thousands.
I have not had any exFat format issues on my drives.
What issues? exFAT drives are also working fine for me, under Tahoe just like they did under Sequoia and Sonoma.
Not aware of any ExFAT issues in Tahoe or previous versions of macOS.
Thank you! It did cause various users a lot of problems. I posted a reference to the issue in my other responses here in thread!
macOS exFAT issue in 2025?
