Image Capture from iPhone to OS X and File Permissions

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Level 1

12 points

Image Capture from iPhone to OS X and File Permissions

Hello. I'm running Lion 10.7.3 and have an iPhone 4S and iPad 2. When I use the Image Capture app to transfer pictures and videos from my devices to OS X it works great with the exception of one problem. Every file that it copies over ends up with permissions of:

(Me): Read & Write

everyone: No Access

This is problematic because when my wife is logged into her profile or anyone else tries to view these files via shared folders, they can't see them. I'm putting them into a folder I created on "Macintosh HD". The folder that they are in has permission of:

(Me): Read & Write

wheel: Read only

everyone: Read only

Each time I import I suppose I could drop into Terminal and run a command to fix the issues but there must be a better way.

Any ideas? Thank you in advance.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 26, 2012 12:29 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 26, 2012 12:42 PM in response to abfield

Creating a folder at the root level is usually not a good idea, It;s to easy for it to get missing when you go to update or upgrade your system. Folders at the root level should really be reserved for system level stuff.

What if you place the images in the /Users/Shared folder? This is a folder that is set up on every Mac and is intended for uses like this. You can make sub-fodders in there to organize your images as you'd like.

The permissions on the folder should cause your images to have the right permissions for others to access them.

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Answer 2

abfield Author

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12 points

Mar 26, 2012 6:21 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

Frank,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I had been thinking about doing that and upon your suggestion I moved all of these shared pictures and other files under /Users/Shared. For some reason however when I use Image Capture to import photos from iPhone or iPad it puts the file in there just like I mentioned in my original post. I can open Terminal and run a chmod to fix them all quickly but this hardly seems right.

How do I get it to take on the permissions of the parent? Or since I'm copying a file and technically not creating one new am I out of luck? Is it assume that most people use Image Capture to get files into their personal User folder? I also use it to get images from my camera's memory card and put into /Users/Shared.

Thanks.

Adam

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Answer 3

Mar 26, 2012 8:19 PM in response to abfield

I'm still in the stone age no iPhone or iPad so you'll need to explain somthing to me. How are you using Image Capture to import images from the devices and are you using Aperture at all?

Hmm, interesting, I just tried importing an image from my camera via Image Capture and the file was moded 600 (r/w me no access anyone else) so it looks like an Image Capture thing.

I don't see anyway of changing Image Captures behaviour you might be stuck having to chmod the files. I suppose you could set up an Applescript to automatically chmod the files on import.

Let me see if I can find out anything.

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Answer 4

Mar 26, 2012 9:07 PM in response to abfield

Got a solution using Automator.

Create a workflow like:

This is an Image Capture Plugin. When you open Automator select Image Capture as the type of workflow and select these two actions.

Copy Finder Items will take the image from Image Capture and copy to your disk. Select the folder you want the image to go to in the To: pulldown. You should select the /Users/Shared folder and any subfolder you wish. I made a folder named Images.

In the second action make sure Pass Input: is set to as arguments and then add the chmod 644

Then exit Automator giving the workflow a name. In Image Capture you should see the workflow you just created

in the Import To: pulldown. Select it. Now when you import the fiels wil be copied to the folder you specified and the permissions will be set to 644 rw for you r for everyone else.

good luck. post back if you have any questions.

(and this is in the Lion list so my question about Aperture above is meaningless! 😊)

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Answer 5

abfield Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 27, 2012 6:33 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

Cool, that did it! Thanks for the lesson, much appreciated. I've only been a Mac user for a few months and have a computer software background. I will say, there are certainly things I love about OS X and the Mac design in general. I won't spend time on that here. However, I'm surprised with some of the issues I've had. Many of the issues have centered around permission issues. If I was a non-tech user there's no way I would have figured this stuff out. I guess I'm a little surprised by that.

Thanks once again, you solved my problem.

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Answer 6

Mar 27, 2012 6:40 PM in response to abfield

Glad it helped. I agree there are many great features about OS X and some that just seem to get in the way. Permissions can be a problem for me also, I get tripped up on them now and again especially when trying to share things among users.

Just remember there is almost always a solution in there somewhere and folk here who will help you locate it 🙂

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Answer 7

abfield Author

Level 1

12 points

Aug 20, 2012 2:40 PM in response to abfield

Okay, so after using this for several months it's still working great. However, I noticed one little quirk. It does move the files to the folder specified and updates the permissions accordingly. However, it ALSO copies the pictures to my User/Pictures folder. I just noticed hundreds of pictures in there. Why is it importing to both places? Automator screenshot below...

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Answer 8

abfield Author

Level 1

12 points

Aug 25, 2012 5:26 PM in response to abfield

Duh, I just changed "Copy" to "Move" and it works fine.

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