Mounting on macOS

Letting macFUSE through on a Mac

For CloudDrive2 to mount a cloud as a local disk it needs macFUSE, and macFUSE installs a kernel extension. On an Intel Mac that is one Allow button. On an Apple silicon Mac you first have to drop the startup security policy a notch, from Recovery. This page walks both routes.

Download macFUSE Back to mounting

Who this is for

Scope, first

Anyone mounting a cloud as a disk on a Mac: the core service downloaded from this site (including the Homebrew install), and the direct-download macOS app.

The Mac App Store build runs fully sandboxed. It has no local mounting to begin with, so it never needs macFUSE — browsing, playback, transfers and backup are unaffected. The full comparison is on the macOS page.

Background

Why a system setting has to move

Mounting goes through the kernel

Turning a cloud into a disk in Finder means something has to catch every directory listing, every open, every write the system issues. macFUSE's kernel extension is that layer, and CloudDrive2 turns what it catches into cloud API calls. Without it, mounting is not something macOS can do.

Nothing else goes through it. Browsing, playback, cross-cloud copying, backup and WebDAV all work with macFUSE absent.

Apple silicon loads no third-party kernel extensions by default

An Apple silicon Mac ships on Full Security, where no third-party kernel extension loads at all — installing one changes nothing. To let it load you have to enter Recovery, drop the policy to Reduced Security, and tick the box allowing user management of kernel extensions.

Intel Macs have no such layer: install, then click Allow in System Settings.

What "Reduced Security" actually reduces

It permits kernel extensions signed by developers Apple has identified to load, and every single extension still has to be approved by you individually in System Settings. It is not disabling SIP (System Integrity Protection), and it is not disabling Gatekeeper. Neither of those has to move — macFUSE's installer is itself signed and notarised by Apple.

You do this once per machine. Afterwards, upgrading macFUSE or CloudDrive2 does not bring you back here.

A fair question: doesn't recent macFUSE have an FSKit backend that needs no kernel extension? It does, but it is exposed only through the libfuse3 interface, its mount points can only live under /Volumes, and its I/O does not match the kernel backend. CloudDrive2 uses the kernel backend, so this step cannot be skipped.

Step one

Find out which chip you have

The two routes differ a lot, so check first. Apple menu → About This Mac, and read the Chip line.

Terminal will answer too — arm64 is Apple silicon, x86_64 is Intel:

uname -m

Apple silicon

Three stages, two restarts

The order matters: start it in System Settings, change the policy in Recovery, and only then, back on the desktop, does the Allow button come into it.

  1. Install macFUSE, then start the process

    Download and install from macfuse.github.io. macOS shows a "System Extension Blocked" notice — click Open System Settings. If nothing appears, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security yourself and scroll to the bottom.

    There, click Enable System Extensions…, enter your login password, then click Shut Down. This tells the system you are about to change the policy in Recovery.

  2. Enter Recovery and drop the policy a notch

    Once the Mac is fully off, press and hold the power button (or Touch ID button) until "Loading startup options" appears. Click Options, then Continue, pick your startup disk and an administrator account, and enter the password.

    In Recovery, choose Utilities → Startup Security Utility from the menu bar. Select your system disk, click Security Policy…, choose Reduced Security, tick Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers, click OK, enter your password and restart. The window is sketched below.

  3. Back on the desktop, click Allow

    After the restart, open System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll down. There is a blocked entry with an Allow button beside it. Click it and enter your login password.

    Then restart once more. Only after this does the kernel extension actually load.

The window in step 2

Sketch of the Startup Security Utility A window titled Startup Security Utility. Two radio options: Full Security, unselected, and Reduced Security, selected. Under Reduced Security is a ticked checkbox reading "Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers". An OK button sits at the bottom right. Startup Security Utility Full Security Ensures that only your current OS, or signed operating system software currently trusted by Apple, can run. Reduced Security Allows any version of signed operating system software ever trusted by Apple to run. Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers OK

A sketch, not a screenshot. Choose Reduced Security, tick the box, click OK, enter your password, restart.

The entry to find in step 3

Sketch of the blocked system extension in Privacy and Security A pane titled Privacy & Security with a row reading "System software from a developer was blocked from loading", and an Allow button at the end of the row. Privacy & Security System software from a developer was blocked from loading. macFUSE's signing developer is named in this row. Allow

A sketch, not a screenshot. The row sits low on the Privacy & Security page, in the same group as "Allow applications from".

No Allow button anywhere?

It only appears after the system has just blocked the extension. If that section is empty, go back to CloudDrive2 and try mounting once more so the block happens again, then return to Privacy & Security straight away.

Intel

One approval, one restart

Intel Macs need no Recovery trip and no policy change.

  1. Install macFUSE

    Download and install from macfuse.github.io.

  2. Approve it

    When macOS prompts, click Open System Settings and press Allow under Privacy & Security. On macOS 12 and earlier this lives in System Preferences → Security & Privacy, and you have to click the padlock at the lower left before Allow becomes clickable.

  3. Restart

    One restart, and the kernel extension is loaded.

Finishing up

Confirm it really loaded

Run this in Terminal:

kmutil showloaded --list-only | grep -i macfuse

A line containing io.macfuse.filesystems.macfuse means the kernel extension is running. No output means the approval did not take — walk back through the steps above.

Which macFUSE you have is shown in the macFUSE entry at the bottom of the System Settings sidebar, and that is where you check for updates too.

Once it checks out, go back to the CloudDrive2 console, open Mount Points and add one, pointing it at an empty directory. The whole procedure is in the mounting section of the help page.

Troubleshooting

When it does not work

It starts with an error about libfuse.2.dylib

macFUSE is not installed — mounting depends on it for that library. Install it from macfuse.github.io, approve it as described on this page, then start CloudDrive2 again.

Mounting broke after a macOS upgrade

Two possibilities, in the order worth checking.

  1. Your macFUSE build does not know the new system yet. macFUSE packages a separate kernel extension for each major macOS release, so a build that shipped before your current macOS simply has no extension to load. Open System Settings, find macFUSE at the bottom of the sidebar, check the version there and look for an update. Install it if there is one, then restart.
  2. The startup security policy was reset. A major upgrade can put it back to Full Security, at which point no third-party kernel extension loads. Walk the Apple silicon steps again — the Recovery part is still just re-ticking the same option.

Before doing either, run the command above to see whether the extension is actually loaded, so you do not do it for nothing.

Putting Full Security back

You can. Enter Recovery again and choose Full Security in Startup Security Utility.

After that macFUSE's kernel extension no longer loads and local mounting is gone with it. Everything else in CloudDrive2 carries on as before.

Why the Mac App Store build cannot mount

It runs fully sandboxed, and the rules do not permit loading a kernel extension — so it has no local mounting and no need for macFUSE. Use the direct download if you want to mount; both builds share one account, so you can switch whenever. The comparison is on the macOS page and the package is on the download page.

Does the Homebrew install need this too

Yes. Homebrew only changes how CloudDrive2 gets onto the machine; macFUSE still has to be installed and still has to be approved, by exactly these steps. Homebrew can install macFUSE as well:

brew install --cask macfuse

You still have to approve it in System Settings as described above.

Still stuck?

Bugs and feature requests are best filed as GitHub issues, where they stay on the record. Someone is usually around in the Telegram group, or write to us directly.

Open an issue on GitHub Telegram group Send an email