quick actions can't write to external drive

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Level 1

4 points

quick actions can't write to external drive

Hello.

I have an external drive (Samsung T7 Shield 1Tb) connected to Mac mini M2Pro via USB under macOS Sequoia updated to the latest 15.3.2 version.

External drive File system is ExFAT.

I can full access to this disk, can read/write files with no problem.

But. If I use any Quick Action command which tries to write resulting file to this external drive it fails on the write operation (with no explanation, just "while running Quick Action "name" the problem occurs"). If I change Quick Action command to write to the local drive everything works fine (and I used that for years), so that's not a problem of the Quick Action command itself.

Looks like that it's something with permissions for the process running by Quick Action. But if I look to Get Info for the external drive I see that I have "custom access" and no possibility to change that (to add "Everybody" with full access, for example).

What could be the reason for such a behavior and is there any chance to fix it. I moved a lot of images from the local drive to the external one and would like to use Quick Action commands to resize and watermark them as I did before on the local drive.

Thanks,

Alexandr

Mac mini, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 19, 2025 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,784 points

Mar 20, 2025 7:20 AM in response to abravorus

In System Settings > Privacy & Security panel, add the Shortcuts application to Full Disk Access and Accessibility.

That won't matter if the external drive is read-only, so check that too.

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Answer 2

Mar 20, 2025 9:16 AM in response to abravorus

What type of file is it?

Are you creating the content for that file on the fly on the exFAT volume or are you just transferring an existing file to the exFAT volume?

I know that we encountered an issue with creating DMG files on an exFAT volume when archiving folders (didn't matter what app was used) and it would silently fail. This had to be done on a volume with an Apple file system such as HFS+ or APFS.

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Answer 3

abravorus Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 20, 2025 7:17 AM in response to Barney-15E

Quick Action command failed on the very last step on the command "Safe File" (if I try to save resulting file on the external disk).

So, the question is - which app or shell script or whatever else executes "Save File" command in Quick Actions? To grant it Full Disk Access.

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Answer 4

abravorus Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 20, 2025 9:02 AM in response to VikingOSX

Done - Shortcuts granted Full Disk Access. Didn't help :(

External drive is read/write for sure. I can create, copy and delete files there. I can run Quick Action and save resulting file on local disk and then copy it by Finder to external drive. This is a possible solution, but if you do it hundred times a day, that's annoying a bit :)

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Answer 5

abravorus Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 20, 2025 9:32 AM in response to HWTech

That's image file, just simple JPG-file.

I use two different Quick Actions to modify original JPG-file(s) (downloaded from camera or iPhone) - first to resize them ("IDb Resize Image" shortcut) and second to watermark the resized image(s) (selfmade shortcut).

Original images could be located on local disk or external disk, no problem with that. Shortcuts work fine if I choose to save modified image files on the local disk and fail to save them on the external drive.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,314 points

Mar 20, 2025 9:43 AM in response to abravorus

abravorus wrote:

Done - Shortcuts granted Full Disk Access. Didn't help :(

External drive is read/write for sure. I can create, copy and delete files there. I can run Quick Action and save resulting file on local disk and then copy it by Finder to external drive. This is a possible solution, but if you do it hundred times a day, that's annoying a bit :)

I didn’t say it needed to be shortcuts, that’s why I didn’t say shortcuts. There is something that runs the quick actions that is not the app and I don’t know what it is, but that’s what would need access

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,314 points

Mar 19, 2025 1:52 PM in response to abravorus

There is mostly some kind of “runner” app that runs the quick action and it would need Full Disk Access.

I don’t know if that is the actual cause and I don’t know what app that would be.

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