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I moved files containing photos from my Mac to a backup hard drive. The drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journal). Can a Windows computer open and see and download the files to their Windows computer?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.6
How did you backup those items to the external drive? Did you manually copy them over, or did you use Time Machine or other backup software?
If you used Time Machine, then you will not be able to access those files as a Time Machine backup is meant to be accessed through macOS and the Time Machine software.
If you manually copied them to the external drive (the external drive is just a basic data drive), then you could install a paid third party HFS+ driver on Windows to access those files.
If you used some other backup app, then it depends on how the files are stored on the external drive by that third party backup app. If the backup app has a Windows version as well, then perhaps it will be able to access the files once you install a third party HFS+ driver and the Windows' version of the third party backup software. If the third party backup software just stored the backup plainly (basically just a data drive), then Windows may be able to see those items just by installing a third party HFS+ driver.
Paragon Software makes a third party Windows driver for accessing HFS+ volumes. I know there is another vendor as well, but I cannot recall their name at the moment.
If you want to share a drive with both macOS and Windows, then you should use Disk Utility on macOS to erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and exFAT. This will allow both macOS & Windows read+write access to the drive. If you format the exFAT drive using Windows instead, then macOS may not be able to mount the volume because Windows will sometimes use a File Allocation Size which macOS does not understand. I recommend the exFAT option for drives shared between macOS & Windows as I dislike having third party drivers installed on my systems especially since any OS update/upgrade can break their functionality, plus third party drivers can make a system less stable and more susceptible to vulnerabilities.
How did you backup those items to the external drive? Did you manually copy them over, or did you use Time Machine or other backup software?
If you used Time Machine, then you will not be able to access those files as a Time Machine backup is meant to be accessed through macOS and the Time Machine software.
If you manually copied them to the external drive (the external drive is just a basic data drive), then you could install a paid third party HFS+ driver on Windows to access those files.
If you used some other backup app, then it depends on how the files are stored on the external drive by that third party backup app. If the backup app has a Windows version as well, then perhaps it will be able to access the files once you install a third party HFS+ driver and the Windows' version of the third party backup software. If the third party backup software just stored the backup plainly (basically just a data drive), then Windows may be able to see those items just by installing a third party HFS+ driver.
Paragon Software makes a third party Windows driver for accessing HFS+ volumes. I know there is another vendor as well, but I cannot recall their name at the moment.
If you want to share a drive with both macOS and Windows, then you should use Disk Utility on macOS to erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and exFAT. This will allow both macOS & Windows read+write access to the drive. If you format the exFAT drive using Windows instead, then macOS may not be able to mount the volume because Windows will sometimes use a File Allocation Size which macOS does not understand. I recommend the exFAT option for drives shared between macOS & Windows as I dislike having third party drivers installed on my systems especially since any OS update/upgrade can break their functionality, plus third party drivers can make a system less stable and more susceptible to vulnerabilities.
Thanks very much for your advice. I am far less talented at the computer than you.
I created files by year on my laptop and then dragged photos and sometimes Pages docs into the appropriate file Then I plugged in the new 2T backup drive. I then dragged the files onto the backup drive.
I have about 20 years on the new drive.
The advice in your last paragraph seems to fit what I have been told.
I can drag all the files back onto my laptop or another drive. Then reprogram the drive to exFAT.
Then drag the files back onto the drive.
Hopefully, that will allow a Windows user to view them and open and drag the files onto a Windows computer.
Again, thanks for your help.
Norm
I moved files containing photos from my Mac to a backup hard drive. The drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journal). Can a Windows computer open and see and download the files to their Windows computer?
