Itunes download error "You do not have enough access privileges for this operation" operation"

I would strongly caution against using the root user on you Mac without knowing about system administration concepts on unix computers. The root user ("super user") account is special. The root user is powerful and hidden to keep users from entering simple commands that can wipe out their computer.

You need to master command line terminal basics just to think about using root.

For example entering "rm -f /" will return an error about permission for your regular user. For the root user this command would quietly delete EVERY file on the current hard drive..

There should be a way to do what you want without using root. Take your laptop to an IT person or an Apple genius if you don't know what "chmod" means.

I am not sure what caused this error for me but this is what fixed it for me for me on an iMac. In iTunes go to iTunes dropdown next to the apple logo and click Preferences and go to advanced. My iTunes media folder location only had iTunes Media in it. I hit the Reset button next to it and it changed it to my user name and where my other music is kept. Hit okay. Close iTunes and reopen it. I was able to download my purchased music that was getting error. Hope this helps others.

Similar issue here as I get this message when I am connecting my iPhone to the computer.

Mac OS 10.11.6

iTunes 12.5.5.5

iPhone - 6s - iOS 10.2.1

Please give some useful hints on how to deal with this.

Thanks,

West

What's the full text of that error message, please? (There's a few different ones I can think of that you might be getting.)

Had the same thing happen to me today. Go to User(your home folder)/Music. Select/highlight your "Music" folder. Then do Command-I ("Get Info" from the File menu), click on the padlock icon in the lower right of the new window. Enter your user password. Click on your username just above the now-open padlock. Select "Read & Write" if it's on "Read Only," "Write Only," or "No Access." Now having your user account with "Read & Write" privileges (it may have been this way already; still do this next step), click on the gear on the bottom-center of that window. Click on "Apply to all enclosed items." When the pop-up says "Are you sure?" (or the equivalent), say "yes." This will grant access privileges to your user account for all the music files inside your music folder--all your iTunes stuff included). Then you should be good to go.

Thanks atobteamthat tip solved the problem for me. I was starting to get very frustrated.

You're welcome! Glad it worked for you, too.

atobeam's suggestion fixed the same problem for me. Thanks!

I've been experiencing this issue for several months. I knew to try to repair permissions AND changing the Read/Write status on the iTunes folder in the Finder.

However, none of these remedies resolved my issue.

I had to basically setup a brand new iTunes library, download everything from the iTunes Store and setup every single device associated with iTunes all over again.

Now that I've done this, it's been 1 week without any issues...until today.

I've repaired the permissions more than I care to admit. Nada.

I've got the iTunes folder (and everything within it) so writable that my dog has access to write to the folders... (yes that's sarcasm...so you can grin)...

...aaaand still iTunes will NOT let me add any media, downloads, or anything to the library because I do not have access privileges. I want to shoot myself. This has been hours & hours of repairing, restarting, setting another itunes library, moving everything again and again...

Something's got to be wrong at the root level and this is affecting my phone, and all other devices... Can anyone help?

(By the way I'm not a total noob since I've been using and advising with Apple products for over 20 years--so any advice you can bring OTHER than repairing permissions and "Get Info" in the Finder will be most appreciated.)

Hi, Bill,

I hate to ask, since this refers to my "get info"-related solution above, but I'll ask anyway just in case. Two things:

1. Did you highlight your whole "Music" folder under your User folder?

2. After you gave write access to your dog (ha ha!) 🙂, did you click on the gear-looking icon on the bottom-center of that get-info window, click on "Apply to all enclosed items," and when the pop-up said "Are you sure?" (or the equivalent), click on "yes"?

This gear maneuver was the key for me and others above. The mere giving of write access didn't do it.

You may have done all that already. Hope this or something else quickly gets this solved for you!

Hey there!

To answer your questions (just to remove these items from consideration)...

1. Yes I did highlight the entire music folder. 🙂

2. I did apply the new permissions (that included my dog) to every stinkin' thing inside every folder imaginable. So yes, I did click "Apply to all enclosed items." And yes, I did click "yes" when it asked me "if I was sure."

Oh trust me, I wouldn't have even posted my reply if I hadn't even done that. I actually knew to do this procedure AND repair permissions before coming to the forums.

I just noticed I did not mention that my iTunes media is all so large, I had to place it on an external drive (it's been on that 1 TB drive for several years now). And yes, I did the same procedure to THAT music library & media folder as well...multiple times. Again, again, and again...and one more time to be sure.

Still nothing...

Up to now iTunes has worked great and I've loved it, but now these issues have seriously affected all my devices (and I do mean ALL of them). I have had to reset my iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV too many times to accommodate this procedure.

I'm so frustrated with all this "new" they keep giving us. I love new stuff. I love fixes. But if it isn't broken, why "fix" it? I still wonder if this has something to do on the root level. Some preference file somewhere probably needs to be trashed and then it would all be fine. I just don't know which...

Again... I want to blow my head off... (sarcasm only folks...nobody needs to call the po po).

I'm in the same boat as Bill Page - I can't get rid of this error. I've tried everything mentioned in this post. I can download songs/apps to my iPhone, but they won't sync to on my Mac.

I hypothesize that this has something to do with my iTunes / iCloud ID being different, since I started getting this error around the time that I synced with the cloud. What do you think?

Here's the detail:

Years ago - before owning a Mac - I bought an iPod and set up my Apple Store ID using a Yahoo email address. A few years later I got smart and bought a Mac & signed up for MobileMe - thus creating an @me.com email address. With the recent iCloud updates, I now have a separate iTunes/Apple Store ID (Yahoo email) and separate iCloud ID (.me.com).

Any thoughts on whether the iTunes vs. iCloud IDs are causing an issue?

For the fun of it, I tried the Read & Write trick again... and it worked. It must have been the computer's fault right? Not user error... right? RIGHT? doh.

I don't get anything when i push command i. file menu doesn't have get info option. any other suggestions, please? Im tearing my hair out. this never happened to me bf, and now, i can't download my fav tv show that i have a paid season pass to!!

thanks 🙂

Robyn