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Photos.app won't import because of permissions problems

Hello, I just upgraded from Mojave to Catalina on iMac late 2013. Everything is updated and spiffy. But when I tried to import photos into Photos.app, I got error saying such-n-such files can't be imported because I didn't have access to their parents folders.


My photo library's located inside a different internal drive in my mac, I already assigned the library as the default library. I set it to not ignore drive's permissions (I have to do so because the drive contains some backups requiring correct ownerships & permissions).


The photos I want to import are on the same drive, different folders. All files and folders belong to me and I have the full R+W permissions. I've browsed mac forums but still haven't found a solution.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 4, 2023 10:49 AM

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Posted on Mar 5, 2023 6:31 AM

I found the fix!


Turned out even though the Finder.app showed that my files had the correct ownerships and permissions (o/p), somehow their ownerships got screwed up probably when I installed a fresh Catalina (to save space, an upgrade bloated the system). Finder reported the files belonged to me, but when I duplicated them, the owner was reported 2x me (my username got listed twice as the user that had RW permissions). Recheck the o/p via Terminal.app showed I only had a permission to write and no access to others.

ls -al /path/to/folder


Correct o/p files to make them read-writeable to you as the owner, and readable only to others

sudo find /path/to/folder -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;


Now some of you way also have whacked up folders o/p. You can use this command to make them read-write-executable to owner, and read-executable only to group and others

sudo find /path/to/folder -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;


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3 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 5, 2023 6:31 AM in response to angryæni

I found the fix!


Turned out even though the Finder.app showed that my files had the correct ownerships and permissions (o/p), somehow their ownerships got screwed up probably when I installed a fresh Catalina (to save space, an upgrade bloated the system). Finder reported the files belonged to me, but when I duplicated them, the owner was reported 2x me (my username got listed twice as the user that had RW permissions). Recheck the o/p via Terminal.app showed I only had a permission to write and no access to others.

ls -al /path/to/folder


Correct o/p files to make them read-writeable to you as the owner, and readable only to others

sudo find /path/to/folder -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;


Now some of you way also have whacked up folders o/p. You can use this command to make them read-write-executable to owner, and read-executable only to group and others

sudo find /path/to/folder -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;


Mar 4, 2023 11:29 AM in response to angryæni

I tried starting afresh, created a new library but the problem persisted. Screenshot included:




My drives:

  • Catalina and its apps: disk2s1, APFS, mounted on "/"
  • Photo library and files: disk1s2, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), mounted on "/Volumes/name/" (ownerships and permissions turned ON)


When importing files located inside "/", it worked.


Could this be a problem? Why now? It worked on previous OSes.

Mar 4, 2023 11:37 AM in response to angryæni

UPDATE


When importing files located inside "/", it worked. Seems like either a bug (or a fix of what used to be a 'helpful' bug) that's new to Catalina cause I never had any problem with previous OSes.


I sure hope apple comes with a fix that benefits us who use more than one drives. Some of us can't afford upgrading to the latest and the bestest that comes with a multi TBs SSD.

Photos.app won't import because of permissions problems

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