Although Disk Utility is the default disk manager app built into macOS, it has limited functions when it comes to advanced partitioning.
For example, it won’t work when you want to resize the Boot Camp partition to arrange free disk space, or when you need to partition an external hard drive only to find the option is grayed out.
In this roundup, we’ll share with you some Mac partition managers that are better than Disk Utility, so you can deal with customized partitioning needs for both Macintosh HD (or Boot Camp) and any external hard drives. At the end of the day, your Mac hard drive will be more organized and efficient.
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Why Use Third-Party Mac Partition Software?
Having extra space in your Mac drive allows you to store more precious photos and videos, and your Mac is likely to run faster with a decent amount of free disk space.
However, these days your hard drive can be used up faster than ever, especially if you back up your iPhone or iPad data to your Mac. Also, those media files are much larger in file size and need more space to store.
If your primary partition, either Macintosh HD or Boot Camp, is getting full, macOS (or Windows in Boot Camp) is going to run a bit sluggishly. The best solution is to rearrange the space between volumes by resizing either Macintosh HD or Boot Camp. In this case, you need an advanced third-party Mac partition manager, as Disk Utility simply won’t cut it.
Other times, you may want to make several partitions or adjust the size on an external hard disk, you could try Disk Utility, but sometimes you’ll find the partition option has been grayed out, or it takes forever to complete during the erasing process. A third-party partition app will save you time and effort.
The Best Partition Manager for Mac Reviewed
Important Note: editing partitions may cause unexpected data loss, it’s highly recommended that you back up your Mac data in advance. We’ve tested the apps recommended below and they are 100% secure to download and use.
1. GParted (Free)
GParted is a free partition editor to manage your disk partitions. It’s available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
You can use the app to copy, resize, and move partitions without losing data. The best way to access all its features is by using the GParted Live bootable image, which enables you to use GParted macOS as well as other operating systems.
This app is 100% free, if you find it helpful, consider making a donation to help the team make GParted better.
2. Paragon Hard Disk Manager for Mac
Paragon Hard Disk Manager for Mac was primarily designed to rearrange space between Macintosh HD and Boot Camp.
The app works amazingly fast in resizing all types of NTFS and HFS based disk volumes. It is also an overall Mac data management solution that allows you to back up and restore your data, completely wipe out a partition, etc.
The app is not free and requires $39.95 to buy.
3. iPartition for Mac (Free)
With iPartition, resizing a partition is super simple. Simply select the disk, grab the resize handle, and drag. You can also use the app to create, destroy, or format partitions on your Mac, whether the disk is the internal Macintosh HD or an external removable drive.
At first glance, the app seems like paid software, but the developer actually shares a license on its official page (scroll down to the bottom).
When you run the app, it’ll ask you to input a license first. Just download the license from its homepage and drag it to the window for activation.
How to Choose Mac Partition Manager Apps
There are many quite a handful of apps that can get the job done. Take the following factors into consideration.
Security
The apps must be 100% virus-free and malware-free. Also, it must not contain any other bundled or embedded plugins that inject ads while you surf the Internet. These days adware has been notorious among many Mac applications.
Features
The best Mac partitioning app should do what Disk Utility can’t. Otherwise, there’s no point wasting time downloading a third-party app.
It would be great if the app can resize Boot Camp partitions if your Mac has a dual operating system (macOS + Windows), so it should work with both NTFS and HFS volumes, create bootable media which can be used to perform partitioning on boot drives, and/or other standard features like create/delete/format any partition easily.
Ease of use
The software doesn’t need to have a fancy or sleek user interface, but it should be relatively easy to operate, and quick in the partition resizing/deleting process.
Technical Support
Dealing with hard drive operations often needs extra technical skills. Any misoperation could cause unexpected data loss. Therefore, the provider/developer of the Mac partition software should respond to user requests.
Final Words
That wraps up this roundup review. Hope you found the app for your Mac partitioning need. If there is another awesome software that you think we need to mention here, please leave a comment below and let us know.
Greg
Several of the mentioned programs do NOT support Catalina- and you haven’t called that out. So a reader of this article is likely to assume iPartition and Stellar Partition manager do. It is also possible they support Catalina, but not APFS.
Apple is slowly coercing people to use APFS and at least iPartition gave up because of their walled-garden approach to allowing third parties to work on APFS; as far as I can tell it means: “You’re not allowed”.
When working with boot camp volumes, there is still a need to use the old physical partition scheme and not just logical volumes inside an APFS container. So when I wanted to resize bootcamp, I found I was unable to shrink the APFS container from the UI, but I COULD from the diskutil command line. That created free space on the physical drive, which again, Disk Utility BLOCKS us from adding a partition into free space. Now I am digging through google searches to figure out how it can actually be done. Purchasing CampTune failed with a useless message basically saying sorry it failed with a red X.
Similarly, boot camp assistant failed once the free space was created. This would have been trivial with the older disk utility, but my sense is Apple wants APFS and logical volumes in the container or else. Only bootcamp manager and a very small set of utilities can work on the actual partitions (not the volumes). I was hoping for guidance from this article, but I think we’re falling short.
Lyle Williams
ipartition website is now not supported/closed
R Simon
I have a non bootable external USB hardrive that I wish to use to create a bootable cloned image of my MAC High Sierra OS.
Will Stellar Partition Manager or Paragon Camptune X modify this USB drive to a bootable external drive?
AnySoftwareTools Team
Paragon can.