"The folder can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."

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Level 1

4 points

"The folder can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."

I've been using a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex external harddrive to make monthly backups with my MacBook Pro for a few months. When I first started backing it up, it was on Snow Leopard. I upgraded to Lion, and have been using that since it came out.

Recently, I decided to go back in my backups to retrieve some photos from a San Francisco trip that I made last year. However, when I try to open the "Pictures" folder, I get this message:

The folder “Pictures” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.

It has a small "do not enter" icon in the corner of the file, and a few of the other folders do, too.

What can I do to open these?

Additional information:

I changed the name of my MacBook a few months back. The backups that I'm trying to retrieve the photo from are from before the name-change. For example, I backed the photos up when my computer was called "johnsmith" and now it's called "bobsmith" and I can't access them. Does that have something to do with it?

Thank you!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Dec 16, 2011 1:01 PM

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Answer 1

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Dec 16, 2011 9:12 PM in response to Etanico

How did you make those backups?

Time Machine? CarbonCopyCloner? SuperDuper? A backup app from Seagate? Drag & drop? Something else?

Did you make a new user account when you changed your Computer name?

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Dec 17, 2011 8:33 PM in response to Etanico

Etanico wrote:

I think it's through Time Machine. The minute I plug it in it starts backing up, without even telling me.

We really do need to know what we're talking about here.

Go to System Preferences > Time Machine. Does it look familiar? Is there anything shown after Name:? If so, is the OFF/ON button in the ON or OFF position? (Don't change anything.)

Open the external HD via the Finder (be careful not to change anything). What folder name(s) do you see?

I think I made a new user account. Not 100% sure. It was awhile ago.

If you did, that would explain the permissions problem. One user, even an Admin user, normally doesn't have access to a different user's information.

How we deal with that depends on what kind of backups they are.

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Answer 3

Etanico Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 17, 2011 8:37 PM in response to Pondini

Yes, we've been backing up through Time Machine.

Open the external HD via the Finder (be careful not to change anything). What folder name(s) do you see?

Backups > [Backup date] > Macintosh HD > Users > johnsmith > Pictures, Movies, Documents, etc...

OR...

Backups > [Backup date] > Macintosh HD > Users > bobsmith > Pictures, Movies, Documents, etc...

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Answer 4

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Dec 17, 2011 8:44 PM in response to Etanico

Ah, good.

Now another question: What version of iPhoto are you on? Apple changed the way this works, on Lion, effective with iPhoto version 9.1.5.

And yet another: it sounds like you want some photos from, say, johnsmith's backups. Do you still have the johnsmith user account on your Mac?

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Dec 17, 2011 9:18 PM in response to Etanico

Etanico wrote:

I've got the latest iPhoto version.

Rats. Apple removed the ability to browse and restore individual photos from Time Machine. 😟

I don't have johnsmith anymore. But...I could always just make it again? Or is the computer smarter than that.....

Yes and no. It doesn't use the actual name, but an assigned User ID (UID) number.

First, try all your existing user accounts. If none of them work, create a new one. If it doesn't work, try one or two more.

When you find one that does work, you'll see that the photos aren't easy to find, and most likely will be only the "raw" pictures -- no editiing, etc. So here's what you need to do:

As the user that does work, open the Finder to it's Pictures folder and Enter Time Machine. Navigate to the backup you want, then restore them to an "alternate" location, such as that user's desktop. See #16 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details.

Then open iPhoto to that library (hold Alt/Option while starting iPhoto), find the pictures you want, and export them to the user's desktop.

Finally, log on to the user account where you want the pictures to end up, open iPhoto to it's iPhoto Library, and import the pictures from the other user's desktop.

Whew, what a pain!

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