I am the admin and only user on a 2020 M1 Mac Mini. I just added an external SSD, APFS (case-sensitive) format. I can not write to it. When I check Sharing and Permissions it says I can only read. There is no padlock option to unlock this, and there is no list of users, including myself. See attached screen capture. How can I change this so I can actually use the new drive?
Mac mini, macOS 14.2
What is the specific make & model of the SSD and did you format it via the "Intialize" button that may have appeared the first time you connected the SSD, or did you use Disk Utility. Also, why did you elect APFS Case Sensitive - generally it is not advisable to do case-sensitive formatting.
I also noticed in your screenshot that the drive has the TIme Machine icon; if you dedicated the drive to TM that would explain why you cannot write to it otherwise.
Thanks for responding so quickly. Some responses:
Sound like I should erase and reformat as APFS and hopefully that also gets rid of any Time Machine footprint.
Yes, erase it to plain APFS.
I have the same problem with a Samsung T7 SSD - it is “read only” - when I try to erase it with the disk utility only 5 options appear: 1) MS-DOS (Fat 16) that is present format, 2) MAC OS Extended (Journaled), 3) MAC OS Extended (Case-Sensitive Journaled), 4) ExFAT, 5) MS-DOS (FAT). Which one???
What are you going to use it for?
Likely MacOS Extended Journaled.
I got it done! I just needed to have the proper requests in. It’s a 2T SSD that I want to use for Computor backup (3rd phase). It’s hopefully backing up now.
Good to hear my friend... good luck. :)
Can't change sharing and permissions for external SSD
