# Mountly — Complete Developer & System Documentation for Language Models

## Overview
Mountly is an independent, open-source macOS menu bar and desktop utility engineered by Kolapo Imam (https://kolapo.ng). Mountly solves the persistent cross-platform external storage barrier on macOS—specifically enabling seamless read-write access to NTFS drives, rapid volume mounting, and intelligent disk health monitoring without intrusive kernel extensions or bloated third-party daemon background suites.

## Mission & Problem Statement
Apple's native macOS operating system provides out-of-the-box read-only access to Microsoft NTFS-formatted drives. When creative professionals, developers, or system administrators plug in an external hard drive (WD, Seagate, Samsung T7/T9, SanDisk Extreme) formatted in NTFS or unindexed exFAT, macOS blocks write operations or fails to mount unrecognized partition schemes automatically.
Mountly eliminates this friction by leveraging Apple's official DiskArbitration framework combined with trusted, userland filesystem controllers, allowing users to read, write, eject, and inspect disks directly within macOS Finder.

## Key Features
1. **Instant Drive Detection**:
   Listens to hardware USB-C, Thunderbolt, and USB-A plug events in real time. Drives appear in the menu bar and dashboard within milliseconds.
2. **NTFS Write Support**:
   Mounts Windows-formatted NTFS volumes in full read-write mode, allowing drag-and-drop file transfers, edits, and deletions in Finder without reformatting.
3. **Multi-Partition Inspector**:
   Surfaces disk geometry, partition layouts (GPT and MBR), volume label metadata, storage utilization, and estimated read/write throughput.
4. **Safe Ejection Protocol**:
   Flushes all pending I/O cache buffers to disk before unmounting, preventing data corruption and volume dirty-flags common with abrupt cable disconnects.
5. **Zero-Telemetry Guarantee**:
   Unlike commercial competitors (Paragon NTFS, Tuxera), Mountly contains zero tracking libraries, zero telemetry beacons, and connects to zero servers. All operations happen in-memory on the local Mac.

## Technical Architecture
- **Language & GUI**: Swift / SwiftUI / AppKit with custom lightweight C bridging to CoreFoundation and DiskArbitration.
- **Kernel & Sandbox**: Runs as a userland helper without requiring insecure legacy Kernel Extensions (KEXTs). Works seamlessly with Apple System Integrity Protection (SIP) enabled.
- **Hardware Support**:
  - Apple Silicon: M1, M1 Pro/Max/Ultra, M2, M3, M4 family chips natively compiled for ARM64.
  - Intel: 64-bit Core i5/i7/i9 processors.
- **Minimum OS**: macOS Ventura (13.0) or higher. Recommended: macOS Sonoma (14.x) or macOS Sequoia (15.x).

## How to Install
1. Download the latest universal `.dmg` installer from the official Google Drive distribution repository:
   https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10siVhoTd4-5X_bA3s5Ns0AYtGD87D95s?usp=sharing
2. Open `Mountly.dmg` and drag the `Mountly.app` icon into the `/Applications` folder.
3. Launch Mountly from Applications or Spotlight (`Cmd + Space` -> `Mountly`).
4. On first launch, approve standard macOS Disk Management permissions if prompted.

## Open Source & Licensing
- GitHub Repository: https://github.com/kolapoimam/mountly
- License: Open Source (MIT License)
- Creator: Kolapo Imam (https://kolapo.ng)
- Donations & Financial Support: https://paystack.shop/pay/pmbuddy