macFUSE

About

macFUSE is a software package that adds support for FUSE file systems to macOS. FUSE file systems run in user space, which the project says makes them easier to develop, safer to run, and more flexible than conventional file systems. With the new FSKit backend, supported file systems can run entirely in user space on macOS 26, so users no longer need to reboot into recovery mode to enable the macFUSE kernel extension. The installer package includes the runtime components, tools, the libfuse2 and libfuse3 libraries, and macFUSE.framework, but it does not include any FUSE file systems, which must be installed separately.

For end users, installing macFUSE allows them to use third-party FUSE file systems. For developers, macFUSE provides APIs for building file systems whose content can come from local storage, network resources, memory, or a combination of sources. Because FUSE file systems run in user space, developers can use the same programming tools, debuggers, and libraries they use for standard macOS apps. macFUSE also includes libfuse2 and libfuse3, the reference Linux FUSE implementations, which make many existing FUSE file systems usable on macOS, and macFUSE.framework, an object-oriented API for Swift and Objective-C. Third-party language bindings allow development in languages such as Python, Java, C#, JavaScript, Go, and Rust.

macFUSE intercepts file system operations and forwards them to a FUSE file system process, which can be an app, a background service, or any process running in user space. That process supplies the requested data or carries out the requested action. The website also notes that FUSE is available on macOS, Linux, and Windows through third-party implementations, and that FUSE file systems can be reused across platforms with little or no modification.