Getting data off an old hard drive with a Mac takes three things: an adapter that fits the drive, a Mac that can read its format, and the discipline to copy everything off before you try anything else. Most old drives still work. The ones that don’t usually give you a warning first.
Let’s go in order: figure out what drive you have, connect it, copy it, and then deal with what’s on it.
Figure out what kind of drive you’re holding
Look at the drive and its connector before you buy anything.
Bare drives (out of a computer)
- 3.5-inch: from a desktop, needs outside power
- 2.5-inch: from a laptop, usually runs on USB power
- SATA: small L-shaped connector, most drives
- IDE: wide connector with pins, older drives
A USB adapter or dock that fits the connector
External drives (in their own case)
- USB with an older plug: needs a USB-C adapter on newer Macs
- FireWire: needs an adapter, current Macs have no FireWire port
- Drive's own power brick, if it had one
The drive's cable plus the right adapter
A few more things to know before you start:
- SATA or IDE decides the adapter. Most drives from the last fifteen years or so use SATA. Older ones use IDE, sometimes called PATA. Some adapters handle both.
- 3.5-inch drives need power. A desktop drive won’t spin up on USB power alone, so use an adapter or dock that comes with its own power supply.
- Some laptops don’t have a drive to pull. Many Macs from recent years have storage soldered to the board. For those, the old Mac itself has to turn on for you to get the files off.
Connect the old hard drive to your Mac
- Connect the drive to the adapter, and the adapter’s power supply if it has one, before you plug the USB end into your Mac.
- Plug it in and give it a minute. An old drive can take a while to spin up.
- Look in the Finder sidebar under Locations. If the drive shows up there, open it.
If it doesn’t appear, open Disk Utility, then choose View > Show All Devices. A drive that shows up there but not in Finder can often be fixed with First Aid: select the drive, click First Aid, then click Run. If Disk Utility says the disk is about to fail, don’t try to repair it. Copy what you can and stop.
If the drive doesn’t appear in Disk Utility at all, check the adapter and the power supply before you assume the drive is dead. A loose connector is a much more common problem than a failed drive.
Can your Mac read what’s on it?
| The drive came from | Usual format | On your Mac |
|---|---|---|
| An older Mac | Mac OS Extended or APFS | Opens as it is |
| A Windows PC | NTFS | Opens for reading, so you can copy files off. Saving changes needs extra software |
| A camera, a TV, or both Mac and Windows | exFAT or FAT | Opens fully |
Reading is all you need here. You’re copying files off, not working on the old drive.
Copy everything off before you do anything else
This is the one rule that matters. An old hard drive has a limited number of hours left in it, and every minute you spend browsing, previewing and deciding is a minute it’s running.
- Copy the whole drive first into one folder on your Mac or a newer external drive, named something like
Old drive 2014 copy. Sort it later. - Make sure you have the room. Check the drive’s size in Finder with File > Get Info, then check your Mac’s free storage before you start.
- Leave it running. A big copy can take hours on an old drive, and a copy interrupted halfway is a copy you’ll repeat.
If the drive clicks, grinds, or disappears while copying, stop. A drive that’s physically failing gets worse each time it spins. At that point the safest move is a professional data recovery service, and the less the drive has run before they get it, the better.
Deal with what’s on it
Once the copy is safe, the old drive’s job is done. What’s left is the pile.
Old drives are full of things you already have: the same photos imported on two computers, installers for apps you replaced years ago, backups of backups. Before you sort anything, find the duplicates. How to find and delete duplicate photos on a Mac covers the free ways to do that, including a Terminal command that lists identical files in any folder.
If most of what came off the drive is photos, how to store photos on an external hard drive covers a setup that won’t turn into the next old drive.
Then give what’s left a home. Move it into a yearly archive folder, Archive/2014 and so on, and resist sorting deeper than that on day one. How to organize files on a Mac has a folder system that holds up.
Using SupaDupa on an old drive
SupaDupa was built for this exact moment: a drive you plugged in and are a little afraid to open.
- One free scan shows what’s on it: every file, what’s doubled, and how it could be organized. The scan is read-only, so it doesn’t change anything on the old drive.
- Exact duplicates are free to find and trash, with no file limit, and copies go to the macOS Trash.
- It remembers the drive after you unplug it. Search keeps working on a drive that’s back in the drawer, which helps when you’re deciding whether it’s safe to recycle.
- Trashing needs the drive plugged in, since the files are on it.
- The free version covers every drive you plug in. Pro is $49, once, for the AI features on every folder.
Before you get rid of the old drive
- Check the copy. Open a handful of files from different folders on your Mac. If they open, the copy worked.
- Keep the old drive for a few weeks anyway. You’ll find the folder you forgot about.
- Erase it before it leaves your hands. In Disk Utility, select the drive and click Erase. Erasing removes all the files on it. If it doesn’t work well enough to erase, many recyclers will destroy it for you.
Find the connector, get the right adapter, and copy everything off first. The rest can wait until the files are safe.