How do I add the staff user group back to my home directory? Help!

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How do I add the staff user group back to my home directory? Help!

I am cleaning up what is a complete permissions and user group mess on my Mac. I know that you have to be very careful during the process in order to prevent locking yourself out and would GREATLY appreciate any assistance/guidance.

I am following what is outlined in this support article and hope that by resetting the permissions for my home directory (and apply to all enclosed files), it will pretty much take care of things.

The first problem I have run into is that I cannot locate the staff user group in order to add to the home folder. I went into "Users & Groups," but I am not really sure where to go from there.

Thanks!!!

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Sep 13, 2019 7:01 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

73,482 points

Sep 13, 2019 10:03 AM in response to AK9011

Do you have a backup?

I don't think anything bad will happen from the following, but of course I can offer no guarantees.

To change all the files and directories under your home directory to belong to the group "staff": type

sudo chgrp -R staff ~

you will be asked for your password. You have to type it blindly (nothing will appear, not even •••• or ****) then press enter.

Wait for the system prompt to appear.

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Answer 2

AK9011 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 13, 2019 9:56 AM in response to leroydouglas

I am the cause of the mess and it is embarrassing, so bare with me. I had an Apple ID and a Gmail account for 20+ years and thought that one or the other had been compromised. While trying to transition, I messed things up and I am having hardware/software issues.

It could have been a firmware update that did not complete or maybe I did not completely sign out of iTunes or Find my phone. I don't really know. I have tried to clean everything up by wiping my computer and reinstalling the OS. I have taken my computer, iphone and ipad into Apple and they have helped me to wipe/reinstall.

In a fit of frustration, I changed the permissions on my computer without knowing what I was doing and right now I am trying to put everything back in place. Back to the system defaults without having to wipe and reinstall again.

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Answer 3

AK9011 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 13, 2019 10:28 AM in response to AK9011

And do these other permissions make sense? My personal application folder has nothing in it,

Hardrive:

• system - Read/Write

• wheel - Ready Only

• everyone - Read Only

-----------------------------------

Applications

• system - Read/Write

• admin - Read/Write

• everyone - Read Only

Library

• system - Read/Write

• wheel - Read Only

• everyone - Read Only

System

• system - Read/Write

• wheel - Read Only

• everyone - Read Only

Users

• system - Read/Write

• admin - Read Only

• everyone - Read Only

-----------------------------------

Shared

• system - Read/Write

• wheel - Read only

• everyone - No Access

MY_User

• User 2 - Read/Write

• everyone - No Access

Temp_USER w/admin I set up

• User 1 - Read/Write

• staff - Read Only

• everyone - Read Only

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Answer 4

Sep 13, 2019 10:39 AM in response to AK9011

The top ones all seem fine.

The Temp user also seems fine.

My_user should be similar to temp user: My_user (me): Read-Write staff: Read only everyone: Read only

/Users/Shared: on my mac it says Read-Write for System, wheel, everyone

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Answer 5

AK9011 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 13, 2019 11:39 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

And to clarify, in Terminal when I type pwd, I am in the correct location to execute the code? It might not matter since, but want to clarify.

/Users/your name?

and lastly, what is user group everyone? They should have read permissions for my Harddrive?

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Answer 6

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,416 points

Sep 13, 2019 8:33 AM in response to AK9011

AK9011 wrote:

I am cleaning up what is a complete permissions and user group mess on my Mac.

Can you add to the big picture here— what lead to this mess?

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Answer 7

Sep 13, 2019 9:55 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

It is easy to set the group of all files inside your home directory to "staff", but before we do we should really understand how we got here.

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Answer 8

AK9011 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 13, 2019 9:58 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

drwx------+ 42 "my_name" wheel

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Answer 9

AK9011 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 13, 2019 10:22 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thank Luis, but before doing so, where should I be in terminal to type the command? Is this correct?

/Users/your name??

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Answer 10

AK9011 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 13, 2019 11:43 AM in response to leroydouglas

A

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Answer 11

Sep 13, 2019 9:54 AM in response to AK9011

As Leroy said, explaining how you got into this mess may help clarify the way forward.

Open Terminal, and type the following:

ls -ld .

What do you get? Since you are asking, I am assuming that for some reason you are NOT getting "staff" as the group.

Normally, you should get a line that starts like this:

drwxr-xr-x@ 181 yourname staff

(where there may be some other number instead of 181 and your short username should be where I put "yourname")

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How do I add the staff user group back to my home directory? Help!

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