Cannot access files on Time Machine due to permissions

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Cannot access files on Time Machine due to permissions

I wiped my hard drive and reinstalled Mountain Lion. I am now trying to pull my files back off of Time Machine - music, pictures, documents. I keep getting errors stating I do not have permission to access certain files and the whole process shuts down. On my backup drive, I had a different username. Is that the problem? If so, how can I fix it without creating a new user with my old name and creating more problems?

iMac (20-inch Mid 2007), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), Time Machine

Posted on Oct 14, 2013 6:55 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 16, 2013 9:41 AM in response to dftemple

I suspect that the problem isn't so much a different user name but a different user ID. You can see that for your current account in System Preferences > Users & Groups by right-clicking on a user and selecting "Advanced Options". (Heed the warning about changing the values you see in that panel!)

You can see the user ID for a file in Time Machine using a command in a Terminal session. Open a session and type "ls -ln ", where the letters "l" are lower-case "L"s and there's a space after what you type. (Don't type the quotes.) Then use the Finder to navigate to a file on your Time Machine disk that you can't access, drag it to the Terminal window, and press <return>. The user ID will be shown in the third field. It will probably be a number like as 501. If your account's user ID is 501 and that of the Time Machine files is 502, I'd create a new account on your Mac. It will probably be given the user ID 502, which will match that of the Time Machine files.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Oct 16, 2013 9:57 AM in response to dftemple

See E10 in first link.

Time Machine Troubleshooting

Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

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