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Q: Preview issues..."couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it."

I am using a 27" iMac running Yosemite. Since I upgraded the OS I can't open anything in preview. I get the error "???.jpg couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it." Every screenshot on my desktop, or image in any of my folders gets this error. I have reset the permissions. I have done a folder preference reset, and deleted any Preview settings from the Library. Yet I still get this error. Has any had the same problem, and have you fixed it?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 29, 2014 7:59 AM

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Q: Preview issues..."couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it."

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  • by Tim Ho,

    Tim Ho Tim Ho Oct 31, 2014 8:59 AM in response to StayPithy
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    Oct 31, 2014 8:59 AM in response to StayPithy

    Same here, can anybody help?? After updating Yosemite and the problem comes out. I have tried using Disk Utility to verify and repair disk permissions. Still not working. Is that a bug....?


    Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Oct 31, 2014 4:38 PM in response to StayPithy
    Level 9 (71,294 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 31, 2014 4:38 PM in response to StayPithy

    Permission Issues - Troubleshooting

        

    You may need to rebuild permissions on your user account. To do this,boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type:  ‘resetpassword’ (without the ’s), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete, restart.   

     

    Repair User Permissions

  • by Tim Ho,

    Tim Ho Tim Ho Nov 3, 2014 8:29 AM in response to Eric Root
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    Nov 3, 2014 8:29 AM in response to Eric Root

    Thanks Eric but don't know why, the problem still here. I can open one jpg, after that I still don't have permissions to open another one. I need to quit preview, open again and the problem loop.

  • by jeremym5,

    jeremym5 jeremym5 Nov 7, 2014 9:44 AM in response to Tim Ho
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    Nov 7, 2014 9:44 AM in response to Tim Ho

    I second having this issue. Disk Utility's "Repair Permissions" function is not resolving it.

  • by jeremym5,

    jeremym5 jeremym5 Nov 7, 2014 10:11 AM in response to jeremym5
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    Nov 7, 2014 10:11 AM in response to jeremym5

    FYI-- the solution outlined here by Linc Davis worked for me:

    Re: Why am I getting this error message when I try to open a photo in Preview?

  • by Scott Brewer,

    Scott Brewer Scott Brewer Nov 30, 2014 9:36 PM in response to jeremym5
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    Nov 30, 2014 9:36 PM in response to jeremym5

    I've had the same problem and was a little intimidated by the "Linc Davis" solution, but it's not as daunting as it first appears and it actually worked for me.

  • by mrcarnut,

    mrcarnut mrcarnut Dec 1, 2014 7:59 AM in response to Scott Brewer
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    Dec 1, 2014 7:59 AM in response to Scott Brewer

    Hi Scott... I am having the same issues with preview. What was the solution you used from Linc Davis? Where can I find it?

    Thanks for your help, Don

  • by Scott Brewer,

    Scott Brewer Scott Brewer Dec 1, 2014 8:35 AM in response to mrcarnut
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    Dec 1, 2014 8:35 AM in response to mrcarnut

    "Linc Davis solution" is in one of the posts above & here's a link: Re: Why am I getting this error message when I try to open a photo in Preview?

    However, I've discovered that, while it opened up the one file I wanted, there are others that still aren't opening in Preview. Grrrr. My workaround has been to use Adobe Acrobat to open .pdfs.

  • by mrcarnut,

    mrcarnut mrcarnut Dec 1, 2014 8:46 AM in response to Scott Brewer
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    Dec 1, 2014 8:46 AM in response to Scott Brewer

    Thanks for your reply... I will try Linc's and the one from Eric and see what happens.

    Again, Thanks, Don

  • by Mikertur,

    Mikertur Mikertur Jan 28, 2015 1:24 PM in response to Scott Brewer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 28, 2015 1:24 PM in response to Scott Brewer

    I'm having the same issue with Preview opening jpgs on a new Mac Pro running Yosemite. I've tried all of Linc's solutions as well as any other fixes I've found here on the forums and the issue keeps coming back. Any other ideas that I could try?

  • by Scott Brewer,

    Scott Brewer Scott Brewer Feb 10, 2015 7:05 PM in response to StayPithy
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    Feb 10, 2015 7:05 PM in response to StayPithy

    Now that I have 10.10.2, I think it's a little better. The problem is that if one Preview document is open, it won't open any others and gives the "couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission" excuse.

  • by kjneese,

    kjneese kjneese Jul 3, 2015 9:04 PM in response to StayPithy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 9:04 PM in response to StayPithy

    SO while late to this thread, I wanted to add my fix (albeit I'm hoping it continues).  After finding this issue on a few different discussions, and dealing with this for almost 2 days and many AppleCare calls, I completely on accident stumbled onto a solution (at least for whatever caused this on my OS).  I have a brand new iMac Retina with Yosemite and realized that after a day that almost none of my PDFs or JPG files would open (desktop or external drive).  Got the error of "do not have permission to view this file" yadda yadda (same as everyone else on this thread) and it only seemed to reoccur after about a minute every time I reboot.  During this minute I was able to open previously denied files in Preview, no problem.  Then suddenly, JPGs and PDFs denied me permissions, except the previously opened files, which remained accessible.  Then I'd reboot and for another minute or so--I could open more files, until Groundhog Day started again.  So, after trying to unlock, already unlocked files and repair disk permissions in disk utility, I finally rebooted for the umpteenth time and the reboot froze....progress bar stopped half way.  3 times.  So now, I'm thinking---how great is this Yosemite OS and my 5 thousand dollar investment!  I decided my only go to was to boot up in Safe Mode, which was begrudgingly slower than any Safe Mode experience I'd ever had on any Mac.  But I went into Disk Utility and Verified Permissions, Verify Disk and Repair Disk Permissions.  Then I Shut Down and restarted again.  Voila!  It not only booted up in a flash, but to my surprise, none of my files were denying me access.  As I type this it's been 2 hours and everything is still working, like a new Mac should.  Not certain how the same Repair Permissions in Safe Mode fixed this issue.  So, as much as I can't guarantee this as a fix, I'd think trying it can't harm the OS anymore than it's glitch already has the user.