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"The document xxxx could not be saved. You do not have permission."


Why do I suddenly get this message? I'm the only one that uses this Mac. Permissions says I have read/write permission. What is going on?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Sep 15, 2012 8:32 AM

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16 replies

Sep 15, 2012 8:55 AM in response to I LUV MACS

I LUV MACS wrote:


It is Pages document that I made a simple update to. It's not even in a folder. It's just on the Mac HD.

Why in the world are you trying to save there? You don't have permission to do that.

Save only to your ~/Documents folder. Better yet create a folder called MyStuff inside your ~/Documents folder and you can save and organize in there with directories and sub directories.


User uploaded file

See... even I don't have permission to save there!

Sep 15, 2012 9:08 AM in response to macjack

Ok, this helped.

What has happened? I've always had loose documents on my hard drive - not in any folder and this didn't happen. Why do I suddenly, today, have to have loose documents in folders AND give my Mac's password everytime I want to name, rename or move something. It was never like this before today. I haven't changed anything since yesterday.

Sep 15, 2012 9:22 AM in response to I LUV MACS

I LUV MACS wrote:


I don't have permission to save something on my own HD??? Strange!

This is a question that's been asked since 10.0 in connection with user permissions. It does give one a bit of a feeling of outrage... what do you mean this is my Mac isn't it? But you can't have multi-user computers w/o permissions.


OS X keeps getting stricter and stricter about how and where you are allowed to what and when. They are dumbing down the OS. Many of the features are good for novice users but not for more experienced users.

Of course, with more experience you learn there is a workaround for everything. But generally speaking it is a very bad habit to keep documents on the top level of your hard drive.


EDIT: I'm not so sure it was like that until today...

Sep 20, 2012 1:54 PM in response to I LUV MACS

I seem to be having a very similar problem, I do not have permissions to write anything in MY home dir


I don't get what's wrong. Below are examples/documenation from terminal. It shows I'm in my home dir (username 'mr'), I can't make new files, I can't change a directory name of which I am owner and have (according to ls read/write/execute permission), and I'm part of the group 'staff' so that shouldn't be an issue either.


iMac:~ mr$ pwd

/Users/mr


iMac:~ mr$ touch this

touch: this: Permission denied


iMac:~ mr$ ls -l

total 1129152

drwxr-xr-x 4 mr staff 136 Jan 21 2008 Adresser

....


iMac:~ mr$ mv Adresser/ adresser

mv: rename Adresser/ to adresser: Permission denied


iMac:~ mr$ groups

staff com.apple.sharepoint.group.1 com.apple.access_ssh everyone localaccounts


My user is not an admin (although I have admin rights on the computer), I'm running OS 10.8.1 on a late 2009 iMac. I'm puzzled, any help appreciated. I'm not sure I get from the thread above what actually helped 'I LUV MACS' solve the issue, but I shjould have write access to my own home-dir...


Thanks in advance

Sep 20, 2012 4:02 PM in response to geneman80

geneman80 wrote:


I seem to be having a very similar problem, I do not have permissions to write anything in MY home dir

ls -ale

Reset Permissions and ACL's within Home folder

http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/


Startup holding command-r keys.

  1. You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal.
  2. In the Terminal window, type resetpassword and hit Return.
  3. The Password reset utility launches, but you’re not going to reset the password. Instead, click on the icon for your Mac’s hard drive at the top. From the drop-down below it, select the user account where you are having issues.
  4. At the bottom of the window, you’ll see an area labeled ‘Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs’. Click the Reset button there.

The reset process takes a couple of minutes. When it’s done, quit the programs you’ve opened and restart your Mac. Notice that ‘Spotlight’ starts re-indexing immediately.

Jan 10, 2013 11:56 AM in response to macjack

"Reset Permissions and ACL's within Home folder

http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/


Startup holding command-r keys.

You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal."


No cigar - I've had to move the eps files I'm editing out of their location, then "save as" back into the original location (where I want them).


This after reinstalling OS and using Time Machine. I've turned of Time Machine (having read this is a common problem with it) but this fix doesn't work.


Ah, gnomes in Cupertino, next time you refer to 'user eperience' and say 'it just works' I hope you'll think of this. Oh yeah, and Apple Maps ;-)

Feb 9, 2013 8:36 PM in response to I LUV MACS

If you click command---Infor OR cmd-----i if will bring u[ the permissions for that doc and maybe other of the same type. Put youself as adminl and make sure you click READ/WRITE on the bottom where it says what everyone is allowed to do. If you click the ball with the line it will ask you who you want on your liist of people to access your page. You can do this for anyapp of doc.


Hope you can understand my scribble! Hope it helps.


Linda

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