A Closed-Source Apple File-System APFS Driver For Linux Announced

With macOS High Sierra finally ditching the HFS+ file-system and switching all macOS users over to Apple's new file-system, APFS, you may find the need to read a APFS file-system from another non-macOS device. Now it's possible with an APFS Linux file-system driver, but it's closed-source and doesn't yet have write capabilities.

Paragon Software who has also developed a commercial Microsoft ReFS Linux file-system driver as well as an EXT4 driver for Windows has now developed an Apple File-System (APFS) driver for Linux systems.

This initial release of the APFS file-system for Linux appears to be an in-kernel module (not FUSE based) and doesn't have file-system write support but it's said to be coming in a future release. Likewise, there isn't yet any utility for yet being able to create a new APFS file-system using Paragon's software.

Those interested in learning more about this proprietary APFS file-system driver for Linux can find all the details on its product page.

Separately, I haven't seen any open-source initiatives yet come up about trying to fully reverse engineer APFS and create a native Linux driver, but when checking on GitHub today there are a few projects/individuals working on low-level analysis of this file-system, etc.