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Do not have permission to open certain files after having been copy/pasted from another folder

Recently I copied a few files from one location on my Mac (OneDrive personal folder) to another location on the same volume (Documents folder), and I am not able to open *SOME* of these files.


I am getting a permissions error stating that I don't have access to the file, however I clearly do. I have checked file permissions and ownership which are correct, and run First Aid on the disk (Repair Permissions has been removed from Disk Utility - among many other things).


  1. I open the source file no problem
  2. I copy the file and paste it into the destination folder
  3. I try to open the file but get access denied


What's extra strange is that this doesn't happen with all files in the same source folder - just some of them.


'ls -l' in Terminal is showing that many files have [extended] file attributes, however most of them open just fine.


This problem surfaced on macOS Mojave, and I have just upgrade to Catalina. Issue is the same and common files to the file access problem are still not working.


I am happy to re-copy the files (and not fix the permissions problem on the copied files); however the copy process is clearly doing something that it shouldn't be.


Greg

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 8, 2020 3:56 AM

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Posted on Jan 8, 2020 4:10 AM

Finder has just crashed while trying to manipulate/replace these files. I had just deleted the folder, and then pasted it back in from an external drive.... then POOF...


Although the underlying issue is not resolved, I found a workaround so that it is no longer manifesting for me.


SOLUTION: Copy the files to an intermediary non-Apple drive which cannot carry over any special file attributes and permissions (I used ExFAT), then copy to the APFS/HFS+ volume containing the destination folder.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 8, 2020 4:10 AM in response to geva-ptc

Finder has just crashed while trying to manipulate/replace these files. I had just deleted the folder, and then pasted it back in from an external drive.... then POOF...


Although the underlying issue is not resolved, I found a workaround so that it is no longer manifesting for me.


SOLUTION: Copy the files to an intermediary non-Apple drive which cannot carry over any special file attributes and permissions (I used ExFAT), then copy to the APFS/HFS+ volume containing the destination folder.

Jan 8, 2020 4:22 AM in response to dialabrain

Thanks @dialbrain - I just tried your suggestion, and confirm that copying the file to another OneDrive folder is OK, however access is denied when the file is copied outside of the parent OneDrive root folder.


Although I agree that OneDrive is likely the one messing things up, Apple should provide file permission and attribute tools to be able to see and modify everything - which it does not appear exist in Finder.



Do not have permission to open certain files after having been copy/pasted from another folder

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