

If you’ve copied files from a different user account into your user account sometimes you may find that you can not rename, modify, move or delete the files without entering an administrator password. Proper Mac OS X Home Folder & Library File Permissions There is more in-depth information about using Mac OS X Unix underpinnings in these books on Amazon.

In more complex cases there could be multiple entries for owners or groups using a Unix mechanism called Access Control Lists (ACLs). In its simplest state these permissions consist of a set of single owner, group and everyone settings.

This section is simply a graphical user interface (GUI) to display and control the underlying Unix file permissions system. Clicking the little gray triangle widget to the left of Sharing & Permissions: will expand/collapse the section. Simply select the file or folder in question and choose the Get Info command from the File menu or right-click on the file or folder and choose Get Info from the pop-up menu that appears.Īt the bottom of the Get Info window is the Sharing & Permissions section. The simplest way to check and/or modify a file or folder’s permissions on Mac OS X is through the Get Info window. While this may sometimes happen due to permissions issues, such behavior could also be due to other issues, such as disk or data corruption.
