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

Just to update on this , my solution, which was a bit "belt and braces" was to move my library location onto an external usb drive, and then having done that, move it back onto my Macbook Pro. This restored all the permissions. :-)

Your suggestion fixed the problem. To explain a little more detail:

1. I had to be logged into the Terminal application with root privileges. I do that by logging as root, but the sudo thing works too I think.

2. enter this into the command line, to set the default directory to /Users, the directory that needs the folder called Shared:

cd /Users

3. Now check to see if the Shared Folder is there and what its permissions are

ls -la

That will list the contents of the directory with the permissions on each file and subdirectory. If Shared is not in the list, add it. This step requires root privileges:

mkdir Shared

Once the Shared directory is there, look at that permissions. The permissions need to look like this on the line listing the Shared folder:

drwxrwxrwx .... Shared

d means directory, then there are three sets of rwx, which all mean read-write-execute for different users of the computer. If they are not like what is showin above, make them like that with this command:

chmod 777 Shared

Now when you list the Users directory, you will see a folder named shared with the permissions that share iit.

And the dumb message from iTunes disappears.

Mine looks like this

drwxr-xr-x 7 root admin 238 Aug 23 20:10 .

drwxr-xr-x 34 root wheel 1224 Aug 21 16:53 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Sep 9 2014 .localized

drwxrwx--- 6 root admin 204 May 29 2015 Deleted Users

drwxrwxrwx 3 root admin 102 Aug 23 20:10 Shared

drwxr-xr-x 41 danallen staff 1394 Aug 21 16:51 danallen

drwxr-xr-x+ 12 darlingcydee staff 408 Oct 8 2015 darlingcydee

I had absolutely no clue this was the fix, until I read winklerjw57's comment

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.)

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!

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.

Dude you rock, I've been f'in witht this for the last few hours.

This one worked for me. Turns out I had tampered with the "Shared" folder's priviledges via Terminal my self. Thanks a lot. :-)

I was encountering this issue on an external hard drive I use to store my music and videos. This fix worked like a charm. Thanks!

Bill,

I went through all these steps and it still didn't work, eventually i reset the preferences and pointed back to itunes folder and now seems fine again...

I had the same problem and found that atobteam's solution worked but the key was finding the iTunes folder not necessarily the music folder. Thanks for the help!