Why can I not access my Documents folder or modify its permissions? (Monterey)

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Level 1

13 points

Why can I not access my Documents folder or modify its permissions? (Monterey)

Lately, I cannot drag my Documents folder to the Finder Sidebar, I cannot doubleclick the Documents folder to open it in a Finder window, I cannot use the reveal triangle to display the contents of the Documents folder, and I can't modify the permissions of the Documents folder via the Get Info window.

Document folder permissions are currently Self: read/write; Everyone: none. I could not add Admin group permissions; I could not change Everyone to read only. All such efforts reported error code -8058.

What is error code -8058?

Terminal shows this (using "ls -al" after doing "cd ~"):

drwx------@ 78 gary staff 2496 Apr 13 07:35 Documents

For comparison, another top-level folder shows this:

drwxr-xr-x 8 gary admin 256 Nov 15 2016 Development

After "cd Documents", "ls -al" shows a correct list of the contents of the Documents folder.

Commands "chmod o+r Documents" and "chmod g+r Documents" seem to work:

drwxr--r--@ 78 gary staff 2496 Apr 13 07:35 Documents

But these new permissions do NOT show up in the Finder Get Info window.

==========

Additional information: for the last several weeks, a few times each week, all the user-added folders in my Finder Sidebar disappear.

Mac Mini 2018; Monterey 12.5.1

Posted on Sep 8, 2022 6:44 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Sep 8, 2022 8:22 PM in response to plaidflannel

The first permission settings were correct.

If you are the owner (which you indicated), all the other posix permissions are irrelevant. Adding them won’t change a thing.

Did you enable Desktop & Documents in iCloud Drive?

That would hide the Documents folder in your home, and show it in iCloud Drive.

If you did enable it, but see the folder in your home, Finder will prevent access from there. You need to use the one in iCloud Drive.

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Answer 2

plaidflannel Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 9, 2022 6:09 AM in response to Barney-15E

Using "Go to Folder..." in the "Go" menu did nothing.

I tried restarting, then closing all the Finder windows, and then restarting two more times. At that point, the Documents folder seemed to work correctly.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Sep 9, 2022 6:19 AM in response to plaidflannel

Sometimes a restart will fix weird things (maybe in this case just Relaunching Finder).

My next thought was going to be restarting in Safe Mode.

It had to be something messed up in Finder as you could access it in Terminal.

Finder will disallow some access to things whereas the POSIX permissions do not restrict them.

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Answer 4

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Sep 9, 2022 3:42 AM in response to plaidflannel

If you use the Go menu to choose Documents, does that open the Documents folder and you have access to them?

If so, hold down the command key and tap the up arrow. Does that go to your Home folder?

Can you open the Documents folder from there?

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Answer 5

plaidflannel Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 9, 2022 1:12 PM in response to plaidflannel

After posting the above message, I restarted the computer. I can again access the Documents folder, but the Finder Sidebar no longer displays the folders I had moved into it before the restart.

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Answer 6

plaidflannel Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 8, 2022 9:21 PM in response to Barney-15E

I did NOT enable Desktop & Documents in iCloud Drive. If I open iCloud Drive, none of its contents is named Documents.

The other common folders in /~, such as Downloads, Movies, Pictures, have the same permissions, and they all behave normally: I can open them and I can drag them to the Finder Sidebar.

Of course, the Documents folder has behaved normally for many years prior to this week.

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Answer 7

plaidflannel Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 9, 2022 1:09 PM in response to Barney-15E

After reporting some success with my problem earlier today, I was away from my desk for a couple of hours. My computer went to sleep, as expected.

When I returned, Finder windows for my home folder displayed only the subfolders Documents, Applications, and Desktop. Double-clicking on the Documents folder failed to open it. After opening a different folder, the home folder again displayed all the expected subfolders, such as Library and Music. But again, double-clicking Documents failed to open it.

Also, none of the folders had a reveal triangle.

Using the Go menu to open the Documents folder produced a Finder window with an empty file list.

In addition to the above problems, my Finder Sidebar had again lost all my folder names except my home folder, Applications, and Utilities. Folders such as Desktop and Documents had disappeared again.

Two tangential questions: (1) I looked at the Finder Preferences plist file (using the Xcode plist editor), but I could not find anything like a file list—I expected there to be a Dictionary entry with those names; should there be such a list? (2) Does Xcode have an error code utility that would explain error -8058?

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Answer 8

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Sep 9, 2022 1:30 PM in response to plaidflannel

(1) I looked at the Finder Preferences plist file (using the Xcode plist editor), but I could not find anything like a file list—I expected there to be a Dictionary entry with those names; should there be such a list?

There once was a plist (sidebarlist.plist, or something like that) in a folder with the Dock.db. I don't know if that actually held the items nor do I know where it is, now. Searching, I can't find anything like that.

(2) Does Xcode have an error code utility that would explain error -8058?

I don't know.

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Why can I not access my Documents folder or modify its permissions? (Monterey)

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