Sharing files among different user accounts -- file/folder permissions?

I have two main user accounts that I switch between during the day (essentially a PERSONAL account and a WORK account). This allows me to keep separate Mail, iCal, etc -- as well as desktop applications and file organization. However, I am having some major issues with sharing data between the user accounts.

WHAT I WANT: A local drop box for shared communal files between these two primary users. Seems simple enough, right?

WHAT I DID: I created a subfolder in /Users/Shared/ called "COMMUNAL DROP BOX" and set the permissions to R/W for both my user accounts, and no access for the other accounts. However, when I copy files into this folder from my PERSONAL account -- it retains the file level permissions. For example, I grabbed some photos from my iPhone that I shot of a display for work -- I grabbed them off the phone and then dragged them into the drop box. They are in the shared folder, but the file perms are set to PERSONAL_ACCOUNT "Read & Write" and Everyone "No Access." There's no way I can continue to individually change every single file's permission -- how do I set it up to automatically match the folder, so that files like this are then readable by my work account?

-Jason M.

Macbook, iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Jan 19, 2009 9:45 AM

Reply
17 replies

Mar 14, 2009 12:02 AM in response to gh4507

gh4507 wrote:
if i use /Users/Shared area, we can all see it, but all new files dropped into this area have rwxrwxrwx permissions, meaning i'm not protecting the data from accidental deletion by my daughter.


Are you sure that's what is happening? Have you actually tested it? By default, new folders should have drwxr-xr-x permission, and new files -rw-r--r--. drwxrwxrwx is not supposed to happen; and that should not happen unless some sort of custom ACLs have been applied.

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Sharing files among different user accounts -- file/folder permissions?

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