FUSE

Overview

Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) is…

[…] a software interface for Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that lets non-privileged users create their own file systems without editing kernel code. This is achieved by running file system code in user space while the FUSE module provides only a bridge to the actual kernel interfaces.

FUSE implementations for macOS

FUSE-T (Recommended)

FUSE-T also implements the FUSE APIs, but does so by implementing a userspace server instead of being a kernel extension. Performance is generally better, as it converts calls to NFS calls, and macOS has superior NFSv4 support.

brew install --cask \
    macos-fuse-t/homebrew-cask/fuse-t \
    macos-fuse-t/homebrew-cask/fuse-t-sshfs \
    ;

MacFUSE

MacFUSE (née OSXFUSE) implements the FUSE APIs for macOS, and is the oldest and most popular FUSE implementation for macOS.

It was originally open-sourced by Google, and has been maintained by Benjamin Fleischer since 2011. It is implemented as a kernel extension, which is an approach that is deprecated as it can potentially impact overall stability. macOS has continued to chip away at these, making them more challenging to enable, in each new major release.

brew install --cask macfuse

Popular high-level FUSE implementations (generally paid)

These are easier to use than the low-level implementations, and often support a wide variety of connection types. They often include their own FUSE implementation baked-in.

Software	Support
ExpanDrive[^1]	Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Box, Cloudflare R2, Dream Objects, Dropbox, Google Cloud Storage, Google Drive, IDrive e2, Nextcloud Files, OneDrive, OpenStack Swift, Rackspace Cloud Object Storage, Sharepoint, SFTP, SSHFS, Wasabi, WebDAV
Mountain Duck[^1]	Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Box, Cloudflare R2, Dream Objects, Dropbox, Google Cloud Storage, Google Drive, IDrive e2, Nextcloud Files, OneDrive, OpenStack Swift, ownCloud Files, Rackspace Cloud Object Storage, Sharepoint, SFTP, SSHFS, SMB, Wasabi, WebDAV

[^1]: Also, both are compatible with services based on SFTP, WebDAV, or the Amazon S3 APIs.

Popular low-level FUSE file systems (generally free)

These require more technical skill to install, and often have no GUI. They tend to rely on a pre-installed FUSE implementation.

Software	Description
kbfs	Mount Keybase.io files as a volume.
s3fs	Mount an Amazon S3 bucket as a volume.
sshfs	Mount an SSH connection as a volume.