Trouble accessing /usr files on terminal

You are attempting to modify a folder containing operating system commands located on the read-only System volume and that cannot be done on macOS Sonoma.

When you place applications in /usr/local/bin that cause namespace collisions with applications included in the operating system, and you want to access those /usr/local/bin applications first, you change your PATH statement in your shell dot file to access /usr/local/bin before $PATH.

export PATH=".:/usr/local/bin:${PATH}"

Now, if for example, I install the complete Zsh shell in /usr/local/bin, it will be accessed and run without collision with /bin/Zsh installed by macOS.



The fact that you thought you could alter permissions of a key part of macOS instead of the above suggests to me that you have much to learn about the Terminal UNIX command line, and you should not be using it without more knowledge of command consequences.

What I really wanted to post and the hosting system blocked:

Ok, now I understand. Here is how /usr/local is permitted on my macOS Sonoma 14.2 system:

drwxr-xr-x 17 root wheel 544 Dec 11 14:39:03 2023 local

And /usr/local/bin will have permission:

chown $USER:admin /usr/local/bin

What I said earlier about the PATH remains true, especially if you had installed the Xcode Command Line Tools whose Python3 interpreter is installed in /usr/bin. Python3 installed using a Python.org installer goes into /usr/local/bin as a link back to its framework library binaries in:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/bin

Ok, now I understand. Here is how /usr/local is permitted on my macOS Sonoma 14.2 system:

drwxr-xr-x   17 root  wheel    544 Dec 11 14:39:03 2023 local

And /usr/local/bin will have permission:

chown $USER:admin /usr/local/bin

What VikingOSX is most of the usual cases. But… Depending in exactly what you are doing here, you might also need to enable Full Disk Access for the apps involved.

While many parts of macOS are and will remain blocked, access to other areas of a macOS install will require the app have full disk access—full disk access itself being a misnomer, as various parts are well sealed against access—and this access must be enabled for any apps needing that access.

Apps can’t themselves enable full disk access. Only the user via GUI, or managed or supervised via an MDM profile loaded.

There’s another wrinkle here for prohibited storage access too, with a not-publicly-documented data vault and app entitlements. Which can cause issues for third-party backup tools and file search tools. That case is not involved here, though.

This full disk access how-to-enable sequence described in a slightly different context:

… Use the systemsetup command-line utility on macOS Catalina 10.15 - Apple Support