I recently bought a new Mini Mac (M4) Tahoe 26.6.2 and transferred files to it from an old Mac via a Time Machine Back Up. All seemed fine, but folders and basic documents such as pages and numbers files that I need to work on only have 'custom access' in the 'sharing and permissions' so short of copying and pasting everything into new documents it is all useless to me. How can I change this ?
Mac mini, macOS 10.15
If you mean that you set up an account on the new machine with the same account name as the one on the old machine before you did the transfer then that might be the cause of the problem. The Mac doesn't use the name to identify the account, it uses a user id (UID). Accounts with the same name can have different IDs.
You can check if your accounts have the same UID on both Macs by using Terminal command "id".
NickE50 wrote:
Both User accounts have the same ID. So the hunt for a solution goes on !
The problem is that you are cherry picking from the other Mac's Time Machine backup. When you should have Migrated from the old Mac or it's Time Machine during the initial Mac mini setup.
How long have you had the new Mac mini....?
One solution, is to erase the new Mac mini and then do a proper migration.
Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support
The other solution, is to setup File Sharing between the two accounts.
If you migrated to the new Mac mini during the initial setup using your same User Account...?
Then everything should be contained with-in that one Users Account.
Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support
If you setup the new Mac mini first using a different Account and then migrated your old User Account ...?
You will end up with two different User Accounts that can only Share data.
Share files with others who use your Mac – Apple Support
At this point you have 2 options if you have two User Accounts.
1) Wipe the new Mac mini and Migrate your old User during the setup.
2) Continue to live with Sharing User files between the two User Accounts.
Have you tried to set your permissions to read and write for each of the folders (Desktop, Pictures, Documents, Downloads, Music, etc.) and then apply that to all included files?
How did you use TM to restore those files? Did you by any chance use the Finder to transfer those files from the TM backup drive? If so, then that is the problem with your permissions issues.
Migration from the old Mac or it's Time Machine backup is general not a problem.
The problem is that you did not migrate during the initial setup of the new Mac mini.
Instead of e-mailing the files, you can also setup network File Sharing between the two Mac's.
Then use that to access and move the files from the old Mac to the new Mac.
Set up file sharing on Mac - Apple Support
Additionally If you want to cherry-pick the file from Time Machine backups..?
You will need to do that while logged into the old Mac account, then internally share the files with the new account.
How old was the Mac that you migrated those Pages and Numbers document from...?
Sounds like you need to update those Pages and Numbers documents.
see > Restore an earlier document version in Pages on Mac – Apple Support
and > Restore an earlier version of a spreadsheet in Numbers on Mac – Apple Support
Hmm...
How many of these older documents do you have..?
What happens if you jump thru the hoops and open an old document, then Save it as a new document..?
Thanks den.thed. Unfortunately it is not that simple. I have one account, having used the same account on both machines, and yet still all my old files have 'custom access' and I cannot find any way to change it.
Thanks for your suggestion. Yes I have tried to change each folder, however, whilst the ‘info’ tells me that I have read and write permissions, the sharing permissions only gives ‘custom access’ and I cannot change this on any of the folders. The result is that I cannot edit any of the documents in the folders or duplicate them.
Thanks for the idea. Certainly the files came from earlier versions on the programs. I’ll look at this, but I doubt that the permissions will let me do this as the main folders have the same ‘custom access’ sharing permissions and so I can’t change anything in the documents or move them.
Lots unfortunately !
If I open one I can’t change its name or move it to another folder. Nor can I duplicate it.
I can copy the contents, open a new file and the paste in what I have copied. The new file then gives me the view and edit permissions that the old one claimed that I had. That’s Ok for a Pages doc, but a real pain for a multi-sheet numbers doc.
I used this procedure from Apple Support :
Recover files using Time Machine and Spotlight on Mac
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you can use Spotlight to initiate a search of Time Machine to recover lost or deleted items.
Note: In apps that let you create and save documents, such as TextEdit and Preview, you can also retrieve earlier versions of documents from within the app. See View and restore past versions of documents.
in the menu bar, then choose “Browse Time Machine backups”.
> System Settings. Click Control Centre 
in the sidebar, scroll down to Time Machine 
, then select “Show in Menu Bar” from the pop-up menu.There certainly seems to be no solution to the problem of changing the Sharing and Permissions entry from 'Custom access'
Thanks Zuraczurx. I know my User Id for this Mac and can check that of the old Mac if I can coaxe some life into it. However, whilst it might solve a mystery, would this in any way help me to solve the problem ?
Thanks but I’ll just e-mail across all the numbers files and copy and paste all the Pages documents as I find need to edit them. It will be a lot less work and will avoid all the problems that I have been warned about with Migration Assistant ( the old Mac is 2012).
Files have custom access after Time Machine migration to Mac mini
