{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "ntfs-3g",
    "section": "8",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ntfs-3g/8/json",
    "generated": "2026-06-02T21:27:36Z",
    "synopsis": "ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\nmount -t ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\nlowntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\nmount -t lowntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "ntfs-3g - Third Generation Read/Write NTFS Driver\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SYNOPSIS": {
            "content": "ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\nmount -t ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\nlowntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\nmount -t lowntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mountpoint\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "ntfs-3g  is  an  NTFS driver, which can create, remove, rename, move files, directories, hard\nlinks, and streams; it can read and write files, including streams, sparse files  and  trans‐\nparently  compressed files; it can handle special files like symbolic links, devices, and FI‐\nFOs; moreover it provides standard management of file ownership  and  permissions,  including\nPOSIX ACLs.\n\nIt  comes  in  two  variants ntfs-3g and lowntfs-3g with a few differences mentioned below in\nrelevant options descriptions.\n\nThe volume to be mounted can be either a block device or an image file, either by  using  the\nmount command or starting the drive.\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "Windows hibernation and fast restarting",
                    "content": "On  computers  which  can  be dual-booted into Windows or Linux, Windows has to be fully shut\ndown before booting into Linux, otherwise the NTFS file systems on internal disks may be left\nin an inconsistent state and changes made by Linux may be ignored by Windows.\n\nSo,  Windows  may not be left in hibernation when starting Linux, in order to avoid inconsis‐\ntencies. Moreover, the fast restart feature available on recent Windows  systems  has  to  be\ndisabled.  This can be achieved by issuing as an Administrator the Windows command which dis‐\nables both hibernation and fast restarting :\n\npowercfg /h off\n\nIf either Windows is hibernated or its fast restart is enabled, partitions on internal  disks\nare forced to be mounted in read-only mode.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Access Handling and Security",
                    "content": "By  default,  files and directories are owned by the effective user and group of the mounting\nprocess, and everybody has full read, write, execution and  directory  browsing  permissions.\nYou  can also assign permissions to a single user by using the uid and/or the gid options to‐\ngether with the umask, or fmask and dmask options.\n\nDoing so, all Windows users have full access to the files created by ntfs-3g.\n\nBut, by setting the permissions option, you can benefit from the full ownership  and  permis‐\nsions  features  as  defined by POSIX. Moreover, by defining a Windows-to-Linux user mapping,\nthe ownerships and permissions are even applied to Windows users and conversely.\n\nIf ntfs-3g is set setuid-root then non-root users will be also able to mount volumes.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Windows Filename Compatibility",
                    "content": "NTFS supports several filename namespaces: DOS, Win32 and POSIX.  While  the  ntfs-3g  driver\nhandles all of them, it always creates new files in the POSIX namespace for maximum portabil‐\nity and interoperability reasons.  This means that filenames are case sensitive and all char‐\nacters  are  allowed except '/' and '\\0'. This is perfectly legal on Windows, though some ap‐\nplication may get confused. The option windowsnames may be used to  apply  Windows  restric‐\ntions to new file names.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Alternate Data Streams (ADS)",
                    "content": "NTFS  stores all data in streams. Every file has exactly one unnamed data stream and can have\nmany named data streams.  The size of a file is the size of its unnamed data stream.  By  de‐\nfault, ntfs-3g will only read the unnamed data stream.\n\nBy  using  the  option  streamsinterface=windows, with the ntfs-3g driver (not possible with\nlowntfs-3g), you will be able to read any named data streams, simply by specifying the stream\nname after a colon.  For example:\n\ncat some.mp3:artist\n\nNamed  data  streams act like normal files, so you can read from them, write to them and even\ndelete them (using rm).  You can list all the named data streams a file has  by  getting  the\nntfs.streams.list extended attribute.\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "OPTIONS": {
            "content": "Below is a summary of the options that ntfs-3g accepts.\n\nacl    Enable  setting Posix ACLs on created files and use them for access control.  This op‐\ntion is only available on specific builds. It is set by default when  a  user  mapping\nfile is present and the permissions mount option is not set.\n\nallowother\nThis  option overrides the security measure restricting file access to the user mount‐\ning the filesystem. This option is only allowed to root, but this restriction  can  be\noverridden by the userallowother option in the /etc/fuse.conf file.\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "atime, noatime, relatime",
                    "content": "The atime option updates inode access time for each access.\n\nThe  noatime option disables inode access time updates, which can speed up file opera‐\ntions and prevent sleeping (notebook) disks spinning up too often thus  saving  energy\nand disk lifetime.\n\nThe  relatime  option is very similar to noatime.  It updates inode access times rela‐\ntive to modify or change time.  The access time is only updated if the previous access\ntime  was  earlier  than the current modify or change time. Unlike noatime this option\ndoesn't break applications that need to know if a file has been read  since  the  last\ntime it was modified.  This is the default behaviour.\n\nbigwrites\nThis  option  prevents  fuse from splitting write buffers into 4K chunks, enabling big\nwrite buffers to be transferred from the application in a single step (up to some sys‐\ntem limit, generally 128K bytes).\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "compression",
                    "content": "This  option enables creating new transparently compressed files in directories marked\nfor compression. A directory is marked for compression by setting the  bit  11  (value\n0x00000800)  in its Windows attribute. In such a directory, new files are created com‐\npressed and new subdirectories are themselves marked for compression. The  option  and\nthe flag have no effect on existing files. Currently this is the default option.\n\ndebug  Makes ntfs-3g (or lowntfs-3g) to print a lot of debug output from libntfs-3g and FUSE.\n\ndelaymtime[= value]\nOnly  update  the file modification time and the file change time of a file when it is\nclosed or when the indicated delay since the previous update has elapsed. The argument\nis  a  number  of  seconds, with a default value of 60.  This is mainly useful for big\nfiles which are kept open for a long time and written to without changing their  size,\nsuch as databases or file system images mounted as loop.\n\ndmask=value\nSet the  bitmask of the directory permissions that are not present. The value is given\nin octal. The default value is 0 which means full access to everybody.\n\nefsraw\nThis option should only be used in backup or restore situation.  It changes the appar‐\nent size of files and the behavior of read and write operation so that encrypted files\ncan be saved and restored without being decrypted. The user.ntfs.efsinfo extended  at‐\ntribute has also to be saved and restored for the file to be decrypted.\n\nfmask=value\nSet  the  bitmask of the file permissions that are not present.  The value is given in\noctal. The default value is 0 which means full access to everybody.\n\nforce  This option is obsolete. It has been superseded by the recover and norecover options.\n\nhidedotfiles\nSet the hidden flag in the NTFS attribute for  created  files  and  directories  whose\nfirst  character  of the name is a dot. Such files and directories normally do not ap‐\npear in directory listings, and when the flag is set they do not appear in Windows di‐\nrectory displays either.  When a file is renamed or linked with a new name, the hidden\nflag is adjusted to the latest name.\n\nhidehidfiles\nHide the hidden files and directories in directory listings, the hidden files and  di‐\nrectories  being  the  ones whose NTFS attribute have the hidden flag set.  The hidden\nfiles will not be selected when using wildcards in commands, but all files and  direc‐\ntories  remain accessible by full name, for example you can always display the Windows\ntrash bin directory by : \"ls -ld '$RECYCLE.BIN'\".\n\nignorecase (only with lowntfs-3g)\nIgnore character case when accessing a file (FOO, Foo, foo, etc.  designate  the  same\nfile). All files are displayed with lower case in directory listings.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "inherit",
                    "content": "When  creating  a new file, set its initial protections according to inheritance rules\ndefined in parent directory. These rules deviate from Posix specifications, but  yield\na  better  Windows  compatibility. The permissions (or acl) option or a valid user\nmapping file is required for this option to be effective.\n\nlocale=value\nThis option can be useful when wanting a language specific locale environment.  It  is\nhowever discouraged as it leads to files with untranslatable characters to not be vis‐\nible.\n\nmaxread=value\nWith this option the maximum size of read operations can be set.  The default is infi‐\nnite.  Note that the size of read requests is limited anyway by the system (usually to\n128kbyte).\n\nnodefopts\nBy default ntfs-3g acts as if silent (ignore permission errors  when  permissions  are\nnot  enabled), allowother (allow any user to access files) and nonempty (allow mount‐\ning on non-empty directories) were set, and nodefopts cancels these default options.\n\nnodetach\nMakes ntfs-3g to not detach from terminal and print some debug output.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "nocompression",
                    "content": "This option disables creating new transparently compressed files in directories marked\nfor compression. Existing compressed files can still be read and updated.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "norecover",
                    "content": "Do not try to mount a partition which was not unmounted properly by Windows.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "permissions",
                    "content": "Set  standard  permissions on created files and use standard access control.  This op‐\ntion is set by default when a user mapping file is present.\n\nposixnlink\nCompute the count of hard links of a file or directory according to the POSIX specifi‐\ncations.  When  this  option  is not set, a count of 1 is set for directories, and the\nshort name of files is accounted for.  Using the option entails some  penalty  as  the\ncount is not stored and has to be computed.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "recover",
                    "content": "Recover  and try to mount a partition which was not unmounted properly by Windows. The\nWindows logfile is cleared, which may cause inconsistencies.  Currently  this  is  the\ndefault option.\n\nremovehiberfile\nWhen the NTFS volume is hibernated, a read-write mount is denied and a read-only mount\nis forced. One needs either to resume Windows and shutdown it properly,  or  use  this\noption  which  will  remove the Windows hibernation file. Please note, this means that\nthe saved Windows session will be completely lost. Use this option under your own  re‐\nsponsibility.\n\nro     Mount  the  filesystem  read-only. Useful if Windows is hibernated or the NTFS journal\nfile is unclean.\n\nshowsysfiles\nShow the metafiles in directory listings. Otherwise the default behaviour is  to  hide\nthe  metafiles,  which are special files used to store the NTFS structure. Please note\nthat even when this option is specified, \"$MFT\" may not be visible due to a glibc bug.\nFurthermore,  irrespectively  of showsysfiles, all files are accessible by name, for\nexample you can always do \"ls -l '$UpCase'\".\n\nsilent Do nothing, without returning any error, on chmod and chown operations and on  permis‐\nsion  checking errors, when the permissions option is not set and no user mapping file\nis defined.  This  option  is  on  by  default,  and  when  set  off  (through  option\nnodefopts) ownership and permissions parameters have to be set.\n\nspecialfiles=mode\nThis  option  selects  a  mode for representing a special file to be created (symbolic\nlink, socket, fifo, character or block device). The mode can be interix  or  wsl,  and\nexisting  files  in  either mode are recognized irrespective of the selected mode. In‐\nterix is the traditional mode, used by default, and wsl is interoperable with  Windows\nWSL,  but it is not compatible with Windows versions earlier than Windows 10.  Neither\nmode are interoperable with Windows.\n\nstreamsinterface=mode\nThis option controls how the user can access Alternate Data Streams (ADS) or in  other\nwords,  named  data  streams. The mode can be set to one of none, windows or xattr. If\nthe option is set to none, the user will have no access to the named data streams.  If\nit  is  set  to  windows (not possible with lowntfs-3g), then the user can access them\njust like in Windows (eg. cat file:stream). If it's set to xattr, then the named  data\nstreams  are  mapped  to  extended  attributes  and  a  user can manipulate them using\n{get,set}fattr utilities. The default is xattr.\n\nuid=value and gid=value\nSet the owner and the group of files and directories. The values are  numerical.   The\ndefaults are the uid and gid of the current process.\n\numask=value\nSet the  bitmask of the file and directory permissions that are not present. The value\nis given in octal. The default value is 0 which means full access to everybody.\n\nusermapping=file-name\nUse file file-name as the user mapping file instead of the  default  .NTFS-3G/UserMap‐‐\nping. If file-name defines a full path, the file must be located on a partition previ‐\nously mounted. If it defines a relative path, it is interpreted relative to  the  root\nof NTFS partition being mounted.\n\nWhen  a  user  mapping file is defined, the options uid=, gid=, umask=, fmask=, dmask=\nand silent are ignored.\n\nuserxattr\nSame as streamsinterface=xattr.\n\nwindowsnames\nThis option prevents files, directories and extended attributes to be created  with  a\nname not allowed by windows, because\n\n- it contains some not allowed character,\n- or the last character is a space or a dot,\n- or the name is reserved.\n\nThe  forbidden  characters  are  the nine characters \" * / : < > ? \\ | and those whose\ncode is less than 0x20, and the reserved names are CON,  PRN,  AUX,  NUL,  COM1..COM9,\nLPT1..LPT9, with no suffix or followed by a dot.\n\nExisting such files can still be read (and renamed).\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "USER MAPPING": {
            "content": "NTFS  uses specific ids to record the ownership of files instead of the uid (user id) and gid\n(group id) used by Linux. As a consequence a mapping between the ids has to  be  defined  for\nownerships to be recorded into NTFS files and recognized.\n\nBy  default,  this  mapping is fetched from the file .NTFS-3G/UserMapping located in the NTFS\npartition. The option usermapping= may be used to define another location.  When  the  option\npermissions is set and no mapping file is found, a default mapping is used.\n\nEach  line  in the user mapping file defines a mapping. It is organized in three fields sepa‐\nrated by colons. The first field identifies a uid, the second field identifies a gid and  the\nthird  one  identifies the corresponding NTFS id, known as a SID. The uid and the gid are op‐\ntional and defining both of them for the same SID is not recommended.\n\nIf no interoperation with Windows is needed, you can use the option permissions to  define  a\nstandard  mapping.  Alternately,  you may define your own mapping by setting a single default\nmapping with no uid and gid. In both cases, files created on Linux will appear to Windows  as\nowned  by a foreign user, and files created on Windows will appear to Linux as owned by root.\nJust copy the example below and replace the 9 and 10-digit numbers by any number not  greater\nthan 4294967295. The resulting behavior is the same as the one with the option permission set\nwith no ownership option and no user mapping file available.\n\n::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-10000\n\nIf a strong interoperation with Windows is needed, the mapping has to  be  defined  for  each\nuser  and  group known to both system, and the SIDs used by Windows has to be collected. This\nwill lead to a user mapping file like :\n\njohn::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-1008\nmary::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-1009\n:smith:S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-513\n::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-10000\n\n\nThe utility ntfsusermap may be used to create such a user mapping file.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "EXAMPLES": {
            "content": "Mount /dev/sda1 to /mnt/windows:\n\nntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows\nor\nmount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows\n\nMount  the ntfs data partition /dev/sda3 to /mnt/data with standard Linux permissions applied\n:\n\nntfs-3g -o permissions /dev/sda3 /mnt/data\nor\nmount -t ntfs-3g -o permissions /dev/sda3 /mnt/data\n\nRead-only mount /dev/sda5 to /home/user/mnt and make user with uid 1000 to be  the  owner  of\nall files:\n\nntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /home/user/mnt -o ro,uid=1000\n\n/etc/fstab  entry for the above (the sixth and last field has to be zero to avoid a file sys‐\ntem check at boot time) :\n\n/dev/sda5 /home/user/mnt ntfs-3g ro,uid=1000 0 0\n\nUnmount /mnt/windows:\n\numount /mnt/windows\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "EXIT CODES": {
            "content": "To facilitate the use of the ntfs-3g driver in scripts, an exit code is returned to  give  an\nindication  of the mountability status of a volume. Value 0 means success, and all other ones\nmean an error. The unique error codes are documented in the ntfs-3g.probe(8) manual page.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "KNOWN ISSUES": {
            "content": "Please see\n\nhttps://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/NTFS-3G-FAQ\n\nfor common questions and known issues.  If you would find a new one in the latest release  of\nthe  software  then please post an ntfs-3g issue describing it in detail so that the develop‐\nment team can be aware of the issue and take care of it:\n\nhttps://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/issues\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "AUTHORS": {
            "content": "ntfs-3g was based on and a major improvement to ntfsmount and libntfs which were  written  by\nYura  Pakhuchiy  and the Linux-NTFS team. The improvements were made, the ntfs-3g project was\ninitiated and currently led by  long  time  Linux-NTFS  team  developer  Szabolcs  Szakacsits\n(szaka@tuxera.com).\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "THANKS": {
            "content": "Several  people made heroic efforts, often over five or more years which resulted the ntfs-3g\ndriver. Most importantly they  are  Anton  Altaparmakov,  Jean-Pierre  André,  Erik  Larsson,\nRichard  Russon,  Szabolcs  Szakacsits,  Yura  Pakhuchiy, Yuval Fledel, and the author of the\ngroundbreaking FUSE filesystem development framework, Miklos Szeredi.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SEE ALSO": {
            "content": "ntfs-3g.probe(8), ntfsprogs(8), attr(5), getfattr(1)\n\n\n\nntfs-3g 2021.8.22                             Aug 2021                                    NTFS-3G(8)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "ntfs-3g - Third Generation Read/Write NTFS Driver",
    "flags": [],
    "examples": [
        "Mount /dev/sda1 to /mnt/windows:",
        "ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows",
        "or",
        "mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows",
        "Mount  the ntfs data partition /dev/sda3 to /mnt/data with standard Linux permissions applied",
        "ntfs-3g -o permissions /dev/sda3 /mnt/data",
        "or",
        "mount -t ntfs-3g -o permissions /dev/sda3 /mnt/data",
        "Read-only mount /dev/sda5 to /home/user/mnt and make user with uid 1000 to be  the  owner  of",
        "all files:",
        "ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /home/user/mnt -o ro,uid=1000",
        "/etc/fstab  entry for the above (the sixth and last field has to be zero to avoid a file sys‐",
        "tem check at boot time) :",
        "/dev/sda5 /home/user/mnt ntfs-3g ro,uid=1000 0 0",
        "Unmount /mnt/windows:",
        "umount /mnt/windows"
    ],
    "see_also": [
        {
            "name": "ntfs-3g.probe",
            "section": "8",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ntfs-3g.probe/8/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "ntfsprogs",
            "section": "8",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ntfsprogs/8/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "attr",
            "section": "5",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/attr/5/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "getfattr",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/getfattr/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "NTFS-3G",
            "section": "8",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NTFS-3G/8/json"
        }
    ]
}