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No permissions to save anything anywhere?

Hello,


I've recently run into a very big problem. I can't save anything anywhere. Downloads work fine, but if I try to manually save a document or extract a file it gives me the error that I don't have write access. To troubleshoot this, I've gone to the permissions of my Documents folder and it still says I can Read and Write. I've also verified and repaired disk permissions with no luck.


Does anyone know what's going on?


Thanks!

Posted on Nov 4, 2013 9:21 PM

Reply
3 replies

Nov 4, 2013 9:51 PM in response to ryder553

Hello!


You can check that are you allowed to access and modify files in that place, are you a Standard user or a Administrator user? Standard user can only access files that are in your home folder. Administrator user can basically modify and access files anywhere. Root account is the most powerful user on your mac, you can access system folders that are locked and blocked. Another solution is the OS X blocked the access of the application that needed to place to your folders. Please tell me what's your account kind and are you allowed to access and modify the places that you wanted to save the file.


Jimmy Wong

Nov 4, 2013 11:52 PM in response to ryder553

Back up all data.

This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.

I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, they may not work as described.


Step 1

If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. To do that, unlock the preference pane using the credentials of an administrator, check the box marked Allow user to administer this computer, then reboot. You can demote the problem account back to standard status when this step has been completed.

Triple-click anywhere in the following line on this page to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):

{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2> /dev/null

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.


The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)


Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1 or if it doesn't solve the problem.

Boot into Recovery. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

Utilities Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.

In the Terminal window, type this:

res


Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword


Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select

Restart

from the menu bar.

No permissions to save anything anywhere?

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