Fixing my Documents folder

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Level 1

13 points

Fixing my Documents folder

So in my futile attempts to move my Documents folder to an external SSD drive, I seemed to have hosed that directory royally. It is completely empty, all of its previous content is on the external drive, but it cannot be deleted. At this point I'm looking to undo what I did and try a different tack, moving my entire account to the external drive. Problem: nothing will go in ~/Documents now, at least nothing that the Finder will display. I can copy files into it using Terminal, and ls shows them there, but the Finder does not.

Is there any way to fix this problem other than restoring the entire system from a Time Machine backup?

MacBook Pro Apple Silicon

Posted on Dec 23, 2022 3:14 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 23, 2022 8:29 AM in response to elisatems

Yes the '+' indicates ACL. As info, repairHomePermissions is in /usr/sbin not in /usr/bin.

I'm curious if you issue this if it would help. I would definitely google more information on 'repairHomePermissions' BEFORE you use it. I'm not familiar with that command. (Ask Apple support first)

In the meantime, what happens if you go into terminal (as a test) change the permissions for the Documents Directory to 777,

chmod 777 Documents. First you have to be in your home directory. If not there, just type cd. That should take you there. You can confirm that by typing pwd. After changing the permissions to 777 which is full access for owner, group, and other users, reboot the computer (not into safe mode) but back into normal mode. See if that permission change helped at all.

As a final step if everything else doesn't help, you might want to open a ticket with Apple Support before making any more changes. Here:

MacBook Pro - Official Apple Support

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Answer 2

Dec 23, 2022 4:58 AM in response to elisatems

If you right click on the Documents folder in Finder then click on "Get Info" are any of the permissions set to "No Access" by any chance or is it showing "Read & Write" for your user account shown with "Me" next to it?

Or from terminal, type in ls -l to insure the directory called "Documents" is showing the proper permissions.

EG: drwx------@

If you don't see rwx as the first 3 values, then you as the owner do not have the proper permissions.

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Answer 3

elisatems Author

Level 1

13 points

Dec 23, 2022 5:05 AM in response to Randall_2023

Thank you! No permissions are set to No Access - but as I posted in a different thread, ls output shows straight mode 755 without the @ at the end. I can certainly make it mode 700, but have no idea what happened to that extra piece of information, which I assume is related to an ACL.

Also, just noticed: under Name and Privilege in Get Info, it does list me as Read/Write and "staff" and "everyone" as Read only. However, right under Sharing & Permissions it says "You have unknown access".

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Answer 4

Dec 23, 2022 6:13 AM in response to elisatems

The @ is not about ACL, it is for Extended Attributes. It doesn't affect permissions.

The xattr command is used to add or remove them.

See this:

https://alvinalexander.com/macos/ls-l-command-what-does-at-ampersand-mean/

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Answer 5

elisatems Author

Level 1

13 points

Dec 23, 2022 7:30 AM in response to Randall_2023

Ok... but looking at a new user that I created last night, its Documents directory does NOT have the @ character at all, but rather a '+'. That is also what mine had, before it got hosed. Does the '+' refer to an ACL, and if so, how to restore it to what it was?

On the new user's directory, ls -l@ returns nothing. Despite the lack of the @ character, my ~/Documents directory does return

com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50

com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50

com.apple.timemachine.private.directorycompletiondate 74

In a different thread, someone suggested using /usr/bin/repairHomePermissions in Recovery mode. With our power being very unstable due to high winds, I hesitate to try anything in Recovery mode that might take some time, so I'm wondering if there is another way.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,206 points

Dec 23, 2022 8:28 AM in response to Randall_2023

I would definitely google more information on 'repairHomePermissions' BEFORE you use it. I'm not familiar with that command. (Ask Apple support first)

There won't be much of anything short of one website describing its use then fairly quickly noting that Apple had dropped all reference to it, as I had stated. My guess is Apple Support will deny all knowledge of the procedure. The OP's Mac is mangled in more ways than just the Documents folder, so I think we would be hard-pressed to find anything that will cause any more damage.

It did repair permissions on a test account I mangled to test the utility. I tested on an OS released after they dropped the article describing the procedure. I have not tested on Ventura.

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Answer 7

Dec 23, 2022 9:53 AM in response to elisatems

Two articles I found that may help you. That said, I am not suggesting you implement them. You can if you chooose to do so but I'm providing them merely as information:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/02/18/repairing-permissions-in-your-home-folder-has-changed/

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/11/18/repairing-home-folder-permissions-a-mystery/

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Answer 8

elisatems Author

Level 1

13 points

Dec 23, 2022 4:56 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you! Our power just came back on and I was able to try this. With an additional chmod 700 ~/Documents,

% ls -al ~/Documents

total 16

drwx------+ 3 lise staff 96 Dec 23 19:43 .

drwxr-xr-x@ 50 lise staff 1600 Dec 23 09:29 ..

-rw-r--r--@ 1 lise staff 6148 Dec 23 19:43 .DS_Store

and I can now copy files back into ~/Documents.

(This also recreated the ~/.DS_Store file, which disappeared after the ACL got deleted.)

Now to bring everything back and then try to move my entire account onto the external drive. I'm still not clear on the best procedure to accomplish this, though.

I will ask a new question about this.

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Answer 9

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,206 points

Dec 23, 2022 8:13 AM in response to elisatems

chmod +a "group:everyone deny delete" ~/Documents

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Answer 10

Dec 23, 2022 9:32 AM in response to Barney-15E

Great info....thanks for doing that.

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Answer 11

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,206 points

Dec 23, 2022 11:55 AM in response to Randall_2023

That’s the website.

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Answer 12

Dec 23, 2022 4:54 PM in response to elisatems

What ended up fixing the problem? Was it, 'repairHomePermissions'?

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Answer 13

elisatems Author

Level 1

13 points

Dec 23, 2022 8:46 PM in response to Randall_2023

I never tried repairHomePermissions. It was

chmod +a "group:everyone deny delete" ~/Documents

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Fixing my Documents folder

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