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ApfsForge Support

Email support@bytehavenstudios.com, or tap Send feedback in ApfsForge's About screen. Tell us your phone model, the drive and any adapter or card reader you used, the drive's format, and what ApfsForge showed. A screenshot helps.

My drive doesn't show up

• Use an OTG adapter or cable if the drive's plug doesn't fit your phone. Most phones support USB OTG; a few have to have it turned on in their own Settings first.
• Allow USB access when Android asks. Android asks for each drive, and ApfsForge can't read a drive until you allow it.
• An SD card in the phone's own microSD slot isn't reached by ApfsForge. Put the card in a USB card reader instead.
• Going through a hub? If the drive doesn't appear, the phone may not be supplying enough power. A hub with its own power supply usually fixes that.
• ApfsForge reads APFS, HFS+, exFAT and FAT. A drive in another format (NTFS from Windows, for example) is named on its card but not opened. An encrypted APFS volume doesn't open either.
• Once the drive is open, it is listed in the Files app's drawer beside your phone's storage, and in every app's file picker.

My phone says the drive was removed unsafely

Your phone may say a USB drive was removed unsafely and ask you to restart. That is ApfsForge taking over the drive so it can read it. Nothing is wrong, and you don't need to restart.

The drive stays read-only

• Every drive starts read-only. To add, change and delete files, tap Turn on writing… on the drive's card in ApfsForge and accept the terms. Writing to exFAT and FAT drives is free; writing to APFS and HFS+ drives is part of ApfsForge Pro.
• "Needs a Mac": a Mac didn't close this drive properly. ApfsForge only reads it until a Mac has checked it: plug it into a Mac, open Disk Utility, select the drive and run First Aid.
• "Write-protected": check the lock switch on the side of an SD card, then on its adapter.
• "Unsafe writes": the drive or its adapter can't confirm that changes are saved, so ApfsForge only reads it. A different adapter or card reader may help.
• Files macOS compressed can't be changed, and some of them can't be opened.

Unplugging a drive you write to

• Tap Eject safely in ApfsForge and wait for "safe to unplug" before you pull the drive out. While a write is running, ApfsForge shows a "Writing to your drive" notification: don't unplug it yet.
• Keep a copy of anything on the drive you can't afford to lose. Writing to a drive from a phone is riskier than reading it.
• If the drive was unplugged mid-write, your Mac may need to repair it: open Disk Utility, select the drive and run First Aid. A file that was being written may be missing afterwards.
• If your computer offers to erase or format the drive, say no. Run First Aid on it in Disk Utility instead, which repairs the drive without erasing it.

Formatting a drive

Reformatting as exFAT is free; formatting as APFS or HFS+ is part of Pro. Each one erases everything on the drive, so ApfsForge first shows the drive's name and size and waits for you to confirm. Copy off what you want to keep first.

Purchases

Pro is a one-time purchase through Google Play. To restore it on a new phone, use the same Google account and tap Restore purchase on the Unlock Pro screen. If Google Play finds no unlock, you may have bought it with another account: switch to that one in Google Play. Refunds are handled by Google Play.

If writing doesn't work on your drive, write to us and we'll help. How ApfsForge handles your data: the privacy policy.