Cannot delete locked folders and files that were shared to me years ago

Hello


I have some very old locked folders that contain locked files, on the hard drive of my MacBook running OS Monterrey. These were apparently shared to me years ago, so long ago that I no longer remember who shared them to me. When I try to delete them I cannot, and it says I have READ ONLY privileges and thus cannot delete.


The presence of these old locked folders and files is a problem, as Dropbox will not sync on my MacBook running OS Monterrey because of them. They did not prevent Dropbox from syncing on my Mac until I updated to OS Monterrey, but now they are rendering Dropbox useless.


Dropbox syncs on my iPhone with no problem, but it will not sync on my MacBook, constantly showing an alert saying it cannot sync because of the locked files. As I said above, I am unable to delete the locked folders and files from the hard drive.

 

Any suggestions? As it stands now, Dropbox is useless on my MacBook.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 7, 2022 7:11 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 7, 2022 3:13 PM

Select the topmost folder and Get Info.

Click the padlock and Authenticate.

Click the + button and add your user with Read/Write.

Select your user, then select Make (your name) the owner from the ellipsis menu.

Then, select Apply to Enclosed from the ellipsis menu.

I you have multiple folders, repeat for each topmost folder.

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 7, 2022 3:13 PM in response to PeterR

Select the topmost folder and Get Info.

Click the padlock and Authenticate.

Click the + button and add your user with Read/Write.

Select your user, then select Make (your name) the owner from the ellipsis menu.

Then, select Apply to Enclosed from the ellipsis menu.

I you have multiple folders, repeat for each topmost folder.

Jul 16, 2022 11:54 AM in response to PeterR

Is your user Admin capable? I.e., is the "Allow user to administrate this computer" checkbox selected in Users & Groups for your user account?

If it is, Is that Dropbox the app/service of that name? The inability to access the folder is likely related to that program.


You can try using Terminal to change ownership with the following: You must do this as an admin user, so if that is the problem, this won't solve it.

sudo chown -R `id -un` ~/Dropbox/IIl\ Curso/ Corto\ Internacional

I'm not sure I spelled that correctly, so you may want to check. You can also just copy/paste all the way through `id -n`, leave a space, then drag the folder into the window. Hit Return.


sudo will ask you to enter your password. It won't show anything while you type.

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Cannot delete locked folders and files that were shared to me years ago

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