In Finder, right-click the file or folder and choose Get Info from the menu. Click the Sharing & Permissions triangle to see the item permissions. How to change permissions for files, folders, or disks. The next step is to actually change the item permissions to whatever you want. Below are a few examples of how you can adjust permissions to. On Catalina, you can't use the above solutions. What you can do is select the folder in which all images are located, go to the usual get info and change permissions for the folder. Once you are done with that, click on the lock icon and get administrator access to change permissions. Owner: The owner of a folder or disk can change the permissions to that folder or disk at any time. The name you enter when you log in to your Mac — or the name of your Home folder — is the default owner of Shared folders and drives on that machine. Ownership can be given away. In addition to the Unix file permissions, there are old HFS file bits. To unlock your folder try: Terminal SetFile -a l /sites/lockedfolder. Terminal chflags nouchg /sites/lockedfolder. Alternatively, you could do a Get Info in the Finder, and uncheck the 'Locked' checkbox from that window.
Ownership can be given away. Even if you own the Mac, you can’t change permissions for a folder on it that belongs to another user (unless you get Unix-y and do so as root). The owner must be logged in to change permissions on his folders. Dec 20, 2018 - Learn how to unhide the User Library with macOS today.
One way to share information from your Mac is by setting permissions in your folders. As you might expect, permissions control who can use a given folder or any disk (or partition) other than the startup disk.
Why can’t you share the startup disk? Because macOS won’t let you. Why not? Because the startup disk contains the operating system and other stuff that nobody else should have access to.
You can set permissions for
- The folder’s owner
- A subset of all the people who have accounts on the Mac (a group)
- Everyone who has the Mac’s address, whether they have an account or not (guests)
To help you get a better handle on these relationships, a closer look at permissions, owners, and groups is coming right up.
Contemplating permissions
When you consider who can use which folders, three distinct kinds of users exist on the network. Here’s a quick introduction to the different user types:
- Owner: The owner of a folder or disk can change the permissions to that folder or disk at any time. The name you enter when you log in to your Mac — or the name of your Home folder — is the default owner of Shared folders and drives on that machine. Ownership can be given away. Even if you own the Mac, you can’t change permissions for a folder on it that belongs to another user (unless you get Unix-y and do so as root). The owner must be logged in to change permissions on his folders.
macOS is the owner of many folders outside the Users folder. If macOS owns it, you can see that “system” is its owner if you select the folder and choose File → Get Info (or press ⌘+I).
Folders that aren’t in the User directories generally belong to system; it’s almost always a bad idea to change the permissions on any folder owned by system.
If you must change permissions on a file or folder, select its icon and choose File → Get Info (⌘+I) and then change the settings in the Sharing & Permissions section at the bottom of the resulting Get Info window. Don’t change permission settings if you’re not absolutely sure of what you’re doing and why. And by all means think twice before deciding to apply changes to all the items in a folder or disk; change permissions on the contents of the wrong folder and you could end up with a mess.
- Group: In Unix systems, all users belong to one or more groups. The group that includes everyone who has an account with administrator permissions on your Mac is called Admin. Everyone in the Admin group has access to Shared and Public folders over the network, as well as to any folder that the Admin group has been granted access to by the folder’s owner.
For the purpose of assigning permissions, you can create your own groups the same way you create a user account: Open the Users & Groups System Preferences pane, click the little plus sign, choose Group from the New Account pop-up menu, type the name of the group, and then click the Create Group button.
The group appears in the list of users on the left, and eligible accounts appear with check boxes on the right.
- Everyone: This category is an easy way to set permissions for everyone with an account on your Mac at the same time. Unlike the Admin group, which includes only users with administrative permissions, this one includes, well, everyone (everyone with an account on this Mac, that is).
If you want people without an account on this Mac to have access to a file or folder, that file or folder needs to go in your Public folder, where the people you want to see it can log in as guests.
Sharing a folder
Suppose you have a folder you want to share, but it has slightly different rules than those set up for the Public folder, for the Drop Box folder within the Public folder, or for your personal folders. These rules are permissions, and they tell you how much access someone has to your stuff.
Actually, the rules governing Shared and Public folders are permissions, too, but they’re set up for you when macOS is installed.
It is suggested that you share only those folders located in your Home folder (or a folder within it). Because of the way Unix works, the Unix permissions of the enclosing folder can prevent access to a folder for which you do have permissions. If you share only the folders in your Home folder, you’ll never go wrong. If you don’t take this advice, you could wind up having folders that other users can’t access, even though you gave them the appropriate permissions.
By the way, you can set permissions for folders within your Public folder (like the Drop Box folder) that are different from those for the rest of the parent folder.
Don’t forget that anything said about sharing a folder also applies to sharing any disk (or partition) other than your startup disk. Although you can’t explicitly share your startup disk, anyone with administrator access can mount it for sharing from across the network (or Internet).
To share a folder with another user, follow these steps:
- Open System Preferences.The System Preferences window appears.
- In the System Preferences window, click the Sharing icon.The Sharing System Preferences pane appears.
- Click File Sharing in the list of services on the left.The lists of shared folders and their users appear on the right.
- Click the + (plus) button under the Shared Folders list or drag the folder from the Finder onto the Shared Folders list to add the folder you want to share.If you select the Shared Folder check box in a folder’s Get Info window, that folder already appears in the list of Shared Folders, so you won’t have to bother with Step 4.Alas, although selecting the Shared Folder check box in a folder’s Get Info window causes it to appear in the Sharing System Preferences pane’s Shared Folders list, you still have to complete the steps that follow to assign that folder’s users and privileges.
- Click the + (plus) button under the Users column to add a user or group if the user or group you want isn’t already showing in the Users column.
- Click the double-headed arrow to the right of a user or group name and change its privileges.You can choose among three types of access (in addition to no access) for each user or group. If you’re the folder’s owner (or have administrator access), you can click the padlock icon and change the owner and/or group for the file or folder.
Permission | What It Allows |
Read & Write | A user with Read & Write access can see, add, delete, move, and edit files just as though they were stored on her own computer. |
Read Only | A Read Only user can see and use files that are stored in a Shared folder but can’t add, delete, move, or edit them. |
Write Only (Drop Box) | Users can add files to this folder but can’t see what’s in it. The user must have read access to the folder containing a Write Only folder. |
No Access | With no permissions, a user can neither see nor use your Shared folders or drives. |
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␡- File System Components
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In this chapter, you will examine the storage technology used by Mac OS X. Storage hardware like disk drives and RAID will be covered alongside logical storage concepts like partitions and volumes. You will learn how to properly manage and troubleshoot these storage assets and to manage storage security through ownership, permissions, and access control lists (ACLs).
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This chapter is from the book Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: A Guide to Supporting and Troubleshooting Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: A Guide to Supporting and Troubleshooting Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
Although personal computer processor speed has increased around one-thousandfold since the first Mac was introduced in 1984, storage capacity has easily increased a million times over. Compare 1984’s 400 KB floppy to today’s average desktop drive at 500 GB, which is roughly equivalent to 524,288,000 KB, or 1.4 million 400 KB floppies. Users have responded by moving thousands of pictures and hundreds of hours of music and video, historically stored in analog form, to the convenience and dynamism of digital storage. Likewise, enterprise customers have replaced filing cabinets and storage rooms with Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) arrays and backup tapes. Even though the Internet recently changed our perception of what a computer is used for, it’s clear that the computer’s primary task is still that of a tool to organize, access, and store our stuff.
In this chapter, you will examine the storage technology used by Mac OS X. Storage hardware like disk drives and RAID will be covered alongside logical storage concepts like partitions and volumes. Naturally, you will learn how to properly manage and troubleshoot these storage assets as well. Finally, you will also learn to manage storage security through ownership, permissions, and access control lists (ACLs).
File System Components
Before you begin managing storage on Mac OS X, it is important to understand the distinction between storage, partitions, and volumes. Traditionally, computer storage has been defined by disk drive hardware. After all these years, disk drive hardware still maintains the storage lead, as it has moved from removable floppy disks to enclosed hard disks. However, other more convenient removable formats have become extremely popular as they have increased in capacity. This includes optical media like CDs and DVDs and solid-state storage like SSD, USB key drives, and CompactFlash cards. All are equally viable storage destinations for Mac OS X.
Without proper formatting, though, any storage technology is nothing more than a big empty bucket of ones and zeros, and consequently not very useful to the Mac. Formatting is the process of applying logic to storage in the form of partitions and volumes. Partitions are used to define boundaries on a storage device. You can define multiple partitions if you want the physical storage to appear as multiple separate storage destinations. Even if you want to use the entire space available on a device as a single contiguous storage location, the area must still be defined by a partition.
Once partitions have been established, the system can create usable volumes inside the partition areas. Volumes define how the files and folders are actually stored on the hardware. In fact, it’s the volume that is ultimately mounted by the file system and then represented as a usable storage icon in the Finder. Obviously, a storage device with several partitions, each containing a separate volume, will appear as several storage location icons in the Finder.
Partition Schemes
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As mentioned earlier, drives must be partitioned in order to define and possibly segregate the drive’s usable space. Every disk requires at least one partition, but Mac OS X can support up to 16 partitions per disk. You learned the advantages and disadvantages of using single or multiple partitions in Chapter 1, “Installation and Initial Setup.”
Mac OS X supports three different types of partition schemes. This may seem excessive, but it’s necessary for Macs to support multiple partition schemes in order to boot computers using modern Intel processors, support older Mac drives, and use standard PC-compatible volumes.
The three partition schemes supported by Mac OS X are:
- GUID Partition Table (GPT)—This is the default partition scheme used by Intel-based Macs. This is also the only partition scheme supported for Intel-based Macs to start up using disk-based storage. However, PowerPC-based Macs running Mac OS X version 10.4.6 or later can also access this type of partitioning, but they will not be able to boot from it.
- Apple Partition Map (APM)—This is the default partition scheme used by older PowerPC-based Macs. This is also the only partition scheme that PowerPC-based Macs can start up from. However, all Intel-based Macs can also access this type of partitioning.
- Master Boot Record (MBR)—This is the default partition scheme used by most non-Mac computers, including Windows-compatible PCs. Consequently, this is the default partition scheme you will find on most new preformatted storage drives. This partition scheme is also commonly used by peripherals that store to flash drives such as digital cameras or smart phones. Even though no Mac can boot from this type of partitioning, all Macs can access MBR partitioning.
Obviously, if you have any additional drives formatted with APM or MBR, you will have to repartition those drives in order for them to be bootable on an Intel-based Mac. But if you don’t plan on ever using the additional drives as a system disk, there is no advantage to repartitioning. Also, you should keep MBR drives unmodified if you intend to keep those drives backward-compatible with generic PCs or peripherals.
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Volume Formats
Change Permissions For Folder Mac Pro
The volume format defines how the files and folders are saved to the drive. To maintain compatibility with other operating systems and provide advanced features for newer Mac systems, Mac OS X supports a variety of storage volume formats.
Volume formats supported as startup volumes for Mac OS X:
- Mac OS Extended (Hierarchical File System Plus, HFS+)—Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS+, is the legacy volume format designed and supported by Apple for Macintosh computers. HFS+ itself is an update from the earlier Mac OS Standard (HFS) format. HFS+ supports all the advanced features required by Mac OS X, including Unicode filenames, rich metadata, POSIX Permissions, access control lists (ACLs), UNIX-style links, and aliases.
- Mac OS Extended, Case-Sensitive (HFSX)—This Mac OS Extended format adds case sensitivity to the file system. Normally Mac OS Extended is case-preserving but case-insensitive. This means that a normally formatted Mac volume will remember what case you chose for the characters of a file’s name, but it cannot differentiate between similar filenames where the only difference is the case. In other words, it would not recognize “MYfile” and “myfile” as different filenames. By adding support for case sensitivity, Apple resolved this issue. However, this is generally an issue only for volumes that need to support traditional UNIX clients, like those shared from Macs or Xserves running Mac OS X Server.
- Mac OS Extended, Journaled (JHFS+) or Mac OS Extended, Case-Sensitive, Journaled (JHFSX)—This feature, enabled by default on Mac OS X, is an option for the Mac OS Extended format that adds advanced file system journaling to help preserve volume structure integrity. The journal records what file operations (creation, expansion, deletion, and so on) are in progress at any given moment. If the system crashes or loses power, the journal can be “replayed” to make sure operations in progress are completed, rather than being left in a half-completed, inconsistent state. This avoids both the possibility of volume corruption and the need to run a lengthy check-and-repair process on the volume after a crash.
Volume formats supported as read/write in Mac OS X:
- Mac OS Standard (HFS)—This is the legacy volume format used by the classic Mac OS. This format, though a precursor to HFS+, is not supported as a startup volume for Mac OS X.
- File Allocation Table (FAT)—FAT is the legacy volume format used by Windows PCs and still used by many peripherals. This format has evolved over the years, with each progressive version supporting larger volumes; FAT12, FAT16, FAT32. Apple’s Boot Camp supports running Windows from a FAT32 volume, but Mac OS X itself cannot start up from such a volume. Boot Camp is covered in Chapter 6, “Applications and Boot Camp.”
- UNIX File System (UFS)—UFS is the legacy native volume format supported by Mac OS X. UFS served as the default UNIX file system for decades. Starting with Mac OS X v10.5, though, UFS volumes are no longer supported as startup volumes. Further, Disk Utility does not support the creation of UFS volumes.
Volume formats supported as read-only in Mac OS X:
- NT File System (NTFS)—Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server all use this as their native volume format. Once again Boot Camp supports running Windows from an NTFS volume, but Mac OS X itself cannot write to or start up from such a volume. Further, Disk Utility does not support the creation of NTFS volumes.
- ISO 9660 or Compact Disk File System (CDFS)—This is a common standard for read-only CD media. Note, however, that “Mac formatted” CD media can contain HFS-formatted volumes.
- Universal Disk Format (UDF)—This is a common standard for read-only DVD media. Again, note that “Mac formatted” DVD media can contain HFS-formatted volumes.
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