Mount OpenDrive on macOS with NetDrive

A small architecture studio keeps every project’s PDFs and reference photos on OpenDrive because the plan covers the whole team without per-seat overage fees. The catch on macOS has been the workflow gap: reviewing a drawing meant downloading it from OpenDrive’s web interface first, then re-uploading the redline instead of saving straight back. NetDrive now lists OpenDrive as a provider, so that folder mounts as a normal Finder volume instead.

Mount OpenDrive as a macOS volume

NetDrive lets Google Drive, OneDrive, S3, SFTP, WebDAV and more appear as native drives on Windows and macOS — no syncing, no full downloads.

• Browse OpenDrive storage as a native Finder volume
• Save straight back to OpenDrive from any Mac app
• Run it alongside your other cloud drives in one drive manager

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What You Need Before Starting

NetDrive 3.18 and later require macOS 14 Sonoma or newer. On macOS 13 Ventura or earlier, NetDrive 3.17 is the last version that installs — the 3.18 update dropped support for older releases. NetDrive runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs; Apple Silicon native support landed in version 3.14.309.

Installing NetDrive on macOS may prompt for a one-time system extension approval under System Settings → Privacy & Security, followed by a restart, before it can present remote storage as a Finder volume. OpenDrive was added to NetDrive’s provider list this release cycle, alongside Koofr, Filen, Files.com, and ImageKit — no separate configuration is needed beyond a normal install.

Connecting OpenDrive in NetDrive

1. Download and install NetDrive from netdrive.net/download/mac. Accept the system extension prompt if it appears, then restart if macOS asks.
2. Open NetDrive from the Applications folder — the Drive Manager window appears, also reachable from the menu bar icon.
3. Click the + button to add a new drive.
4. Select OpenDrive from the provider list.
5. Sign in with the OpenDrive account credentials when prompted.
6. Set a mount path — NetDrive defaults to a volume under /Volumes/, and the volume label can be renamed to something descriptive like OpenDrive-Studio.
7. Click Save, then Mount. The volume appears in Finder’s sidebar within a few seconds.

Working With OpenDrive Files on macOS

Once mounted, the OpenDrive volume behaves like any network volume in Finder — files open directly in Preview, Pages, or whatever app is set as the default, and saving writes straight back through the mount instead of round-tripping through a browser upload. Since version 3.16.667, mounted drives are indexed by Spotlight, so a specific drawing or PDF can be found by filename without opening Finder and browsing folder by folder.

NetDrive keeps a local disk cache of recently accessed files, adjustable from 100 GB to 1 TB in the drive settings. Reopening the same set of reference photos during a design review skips a second download from OpenDrive, since the cached copy is already on disk.

Read-Only Access and Auto-Mount

A completed project archive that’s been delivered to the client often just needs to stay reachable for reference, not editable. NetDrive lets any mounted drive — including an OpenDrive connection — be set to read-only at mount time, so the volume shows up in Finder but any attempt to save, rename, or delete inside it is rejected.

For a drive that should reconnect automatically, set Auto Mount to On Login in the drive’s settings so it’s available every time someone signs in, or On Boot for a shared studio machine where the volume needs to be present before anyone logs in at all.

Wrap-up

Mounting OpenDrive as a Finder volume removes the download-then-reupload loop that comes with browser-only cloud storage. For the Windows version of this setup, see Mount Koofr on Windows for a similar walkthrough with another new provider, or check NetDrive on macOS 26 Tahoe for the latest platform notes.

— Robin, NetDrive