Can't Copy a Font into /System/Library/Fonts

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Level 1

26 points

Can't Copy a Font into /System/Library/Fonts

Hello,

Using Sierra I cannot copy a (ttf) file to /System/Library/Fonts

I tried sudo cp which kept giving an "Operation not permitted" error. Then I su'd to root and tried to cp, which kept giving the same result.

cp: /System/Library/Fonts/Times CE Regular.ttf: Operation not permitted

(Note that this is the error message and not my syntax; I '\' escaped the spaces.)

I confirmed that my cp syntax was correct by copying the same file into my (root's) home-dir.

Then I fast-user switched to root and via Finder-based drag-drop tried to copy the file into /System/Library/Fonts but Finder showed the 'prohibited operation' icon.

I confirmed that root has all perms in /System/Library/Fonts

In earlier OS X versions, if I recall correctly, I have copied files into /System/Library/[something] using my personal user account with 'Administrator' privs but now in Sierra even though root should be able to copy anything anywhere in theory and should be able to do so in practice in view of root's privs and the target dir's perms, it cannot do so.

Would appreciate an explanation and/or a solution to the problem.

Thanks,

kds-kds

Posted on Sep 20, 2017 6:58 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,928 points

Sep 20, 2017 8:43 AM in response to KDS-KDS

There is no advantage whatsoever to putting third party fonts into the System folder.

As Niel noted, put them in the root /Library/Fonts/ folder if you want all users on that Mac to have access to it. If you want to limit use of the font to yourself, put it in the Fonts folder of your user account.

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