How to restrict External Drive access in other user accounts

I just purchased an external HD and moved my iTunes and iPhoto libraries to it. No problem there.

My Mac mini has four user accounts and I'd like to set the permissions on the external HD so that only I can write to it from my account. I'm attempting to do this through 'Get Info' on the external drive, then setting Sharing & Permissions to 'Read and Write' for myself and 'Read only' for the other three accounts. But it seems that when I set one of these it gets set for all four accounts.

Am I doing something wrong trying to set the permissions this way, or, is there a better way to do it?

Thanks,
Andy

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.6.3), External HD

Posted on May 9, 2010 4:08 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 9, 2010 5:19 PM

What is the filesystem type on the external drive? The Format line of the Get Info window will show this.

If it's FAT, which is typical for an external USB drive if you haven't reformatted it, then you can't use per-user file permissions. You'll need to use Disk Utility to reformat it to Mac OS Extended. Make sure you have a full backup first.
18 replies

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

How to restrict External Drive access in other user accounts

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.