Preview app file permissions issue

Question

Level 1

11 points

Preview app file permissions issue

I'm receiving this dialog box (see above) for a significant number of images on my hard drive when attempting to Open them with the OS X Preview application.

The odd thing is there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason (i.e. 'jpeg' vs. 'jpg', date, size, naming, folder and sub-folders) to which files are affected.

Also, I can view these same images with Quick Look (in the Finder); and Open them with third-party applications without an issue.

I've tried manually changing the image file Permissions via Get Info, but the default shows me as already having Read & Write privileges. I've tried resetting this via individual files (one-by-one) and as a batch in a folder, but it didn't make any difference. Those impacted remained impacted; those not impacted weren't changed, either.

Finally, this malady isn't impacting any other file types.

Ideas?

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), 3.3 GHz Core i5, 24 GB 1600 MHz DDR

Posted on Aug 24, 2017 1:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Teddy_B

Community Specialist

Aug 25, 2017 11:10 AM in response to Duane V

Hello Duane,

Thanks for reaching out to the Apple Support Community. I understand you’re having trouble opening some of your photos using Preview, and I have some information that may help.

Have a look at the article below for some helpful troubleshooting steps.

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support

If you run into any trouble, please reach out again.
Best Regards.

Reply

Answer 2

Joe Faber

Level 1

132 points

Sep 24, 2017 9:01 PM in response to Teddy_B

I am having a similar issue, but this time it's with a sparse image volume that I created and is stored on iCloud. When I open the volume, I can see the contents, but am getting the same error if I try to open pdf files via preview. What's even stranger is that "Quick look" from the gear icon will open the pdf, but Preview won't open it. Permissions seem to be set appropriately. Any idea how I'd modify the Terminal command suggested below to refer to the image volume instead?

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support

I can navigate back to /Volumes/"Name of mounted sparse image" okay, but unsure what to do next.

Thanks!

Joe

Reply