ExtendFS overview

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.

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.

Features

Easy to enable (just flip a switch in System Settings)
Easy to use (just plug in a disk)
Safe implementation with FSKit (no reducing system security levels in recovery mode)
Open source and free (also available as a paid download on the Mac App Store if you want to support its development)

What's new in version 1.2.0

Fixed

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.

New

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.
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.