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Cannot change permissions on startup disk macOS 12.5, when I try to add myself as administrator, a popup appears saying I don't have permission to do that. Should I be able to do that?
Mac Studio, macOS 12.5
Do you see any other Users under Macintosh HD? Including Deleted Users? And you’re referring to the system library? And not the user library? If so, can you take a screen shot of Disk Utility? (Found in Finder > Applications > Utilities). Also, if you see 10gb of System storage in About This Mac. This would be normal, it maybe even be larger. Can you take screen shots of Disk Utility and About This Mac? Cheers.
Do you see any other Users under Macintosh HD? Including Deleted Users? And you’re referring to the system library? And not the user library? If so, can you take a screen shot of Disk Utility? (Found in Finder > Applications > Utilities). Also, if you see 10gb of System storage in About This Mac. This would be normal, it maybe even be larger. Can you take screen shots of Disk Utility and About This Mac? Cheers.
Hey again! Thanks for that info.
I think the reason for this maybe the intro to the Read Only system volume, since OS Catalina:
About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple Support
Forgive me if I mis-understood, but yes, since then, the startup “Container” contains the read only Macintosh HD Volume, this partition cannot be written to, and is a big and great part of Apple’s security measures. The volume that you can control, usually Macintosh HD -Data, which has your user data, and then of course the normal required, small volumes.
Which is why you can no longer store files on the root level of “Macintosh HD” in Finder and so forth. Hope that helps!
Hi dizzyheights!
Can you say where and how you are trying to get permissions to the startup disk? Likewise why? And also what happens when you try to add yourself as an admin?
Does this happen when you try to add a new admin user? Or were you trying to accomplish something’s else? Thanks!
I've done too much migrating and copying old stuff onto my Studio. My startup disk (which I renamed from Macintosh HD) says when I click get Info on the disk ikon, that only system can read & write, everyone else (wheel and everyone) can only read. I thought, being the only administrator, I should be able to read & write too - but when I try to to add myself in the unlocked Get Info it says in a popup that I don't have the necessary permissions. I've done Recovery Disk Utility and Terminal, but nothing seems to get me permissions. Why? Always used to like fiddling with stuff on the startup disk.
Thanks DiZoE, I was just starting to realise what's happening. My home folder has my stuff that I can read and write to, for a while I've been wondering what the other volumes taking up so much space were. I wonder no more!
Hey again! No problem, for what it’s worth the other volumes, the main one being Macintosh HD (by default), usually take very little storage, maybe 15gb or so, so if you do have more volumes on the hard disk that you didn’t put there, you can remove if you don’t need the data. But most likely your full storage is resulting from user data, from yours or another user account. Happy to help with that if needed, but yes, I remember thinking the same thing after the Catalina release. Hope it works out!
There's more data on the disk than I can account for in the Applications, Library and System folders, the Users folder is fine - that's where I work. How can I see the maybe 5-10GB of invisible data? Maybe an old account that is no longer used (or visible)?
Problem solved, thanks!
Good to hear! What was the culprit?
Cannot change permissions on startup disk macOS 12.5
