Mac Studio: Error-Code 50 prevents copying files to external drive

rwdepalma wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/658d809e-08b4-405b-96de-0101e6bd2601

I cleaned out the downloads and several other miscellaneous files on the desktop. I now have 129 GB of space on my internal solid state 1 TB HD (I should have bought a bigger HD).

No you do not have 129GB of space.....it is noted as "Available" which on macOS is not synonymous with Free. You may have 125GB of Free storage space that can be used immediately. Ignore the very misleading "Available" storage value shown everywhere in macOS. The only important storage value is the Free space value which is only shown correctly in Disk Utility.

After several restarts my Disk Utility is no longer displaying anything - just keeps loading. I still can't see my external drive with all my photo files. Now I can't even Mount it. Very very nervous.

Are these "backup" drives actually bootable macOS external drives? You do have to be very careful here if that is the case or you can really mess up your file/folder permissions especially if the macOS user accounts on them do not align perfectly with the UserIDs of your main boot drive.

If you are going to mix an external boot drive with also being a data drive, then you should at the very least create a new APFS volume on it to store files you want to access from various boot drives. And make sure to enable "Ignore Ownership" on that APFS volume. Better yet, have a dedicated external drive for the data with a dedicated external boot drive.

Also, when running First Aid....ignore the summary result as it may not be telling you the truth. Even if the First Aid summary says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll through the report to see if any unfixed errors or warnings are listed. If there are any, then run First Aid again until they are gone. If after several scans the errors/warnings remain, then they cannot be repaired. Make sure to run First Aid on the hidden Container. You may need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the hidden Container & physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.

The most obvious place to look for a bit more space is in the Downloads folder, because everything there came from the Internet, and the vast majority can be re-downloaded if/when needed again.

Focus on copying this files.

Restart your Mac, and do not automatically start all your usual apps. In fact, actively QUIT ones you are not using in this moment (not just close windows, which leaves them running in the background). That will reduce required swap file space.

copy smaller groups of files, so that the auto-generated lists are smaller, and will not get clobbered by low space on the boot drive.

Not on the entire drive. The system owns the drive and is not willing to let you have it entirely.

Note the Lock icon in the lower left corner of that window.

You can create folders inside, and change the permissions on those.

Macerror -50 suggests a malformed request to move files. That request would be created and stored on the boot drive.

so I looked at several drives, and found one that does NOT have a system installed. The drive itself has these permissions:

I opened the top level of the drive, and asked Finder to create a new folder:

the FOLDER, I can have.

The entire Drive is not "mine"

the fundamental problem is likely that disk is essentially full, with only about 6 percent free when it should be closer to 20 percent for appropriately-responsive operation.

That sounds like great progress!

Are you ok now, or still stuck?

Let Readers know what you need.