File permission troubles on High Sierra

Give this a try.

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

I've been having the same problem for several days. Thanks for directing me to this support page. I'm a little surprised that my computer has been "apply privileges" for so long now though. I do have a lot on this machine, so perhaps the hours should be expected? Any reassurance appreciated!

Thanks! I'm running it on a 3/4 full 2TB HD, so perhaps I shouldn't expect your speed. It is doing something - Finder is staying up there in CPU and memory usage. I was working on something else and attempted to delete a small file, but Finder is still moving that 2 MB file to the trash an hour later.... I also noticed Dropbox started syncing files that I hadn't touched in over a year. That made me think this process might be doing something file by file.

I'm a little worried about how to force stop it if it comes to that, but for now I'm just letting it run.

Just in case anyone else stops by, when I came back to my machine hours later, the first step had finished normally. So that step took 5-10 hours. I opened Terminal, started the second step, and when I woke up this morning everything looks great. Thanks again for the pointer.

Hi,

I had the same problem with permissions/desktop files disappeard after updating my system to High Sierra.

Steps that worked for me:

1. create another administrator account (u cant do below steps from your corrupted account)

2. log to the new account

3. go to /users right click on the corupted user folder and select Get Info

4. extend permission tab at the bottom. Click on cogwheel and select "apply to enclosed items..."

5. After process finish, you should be able to log to your primary account and everything should work fine.

Hope this help!

I was having a slightly different, but related, problem. I am running macOS 10.13.2 and my startup up disk is using APFS. I have not had file permission problems on this disk but have had random crashes of some of the apps mentioned. I implemented the fix outlined so fingers crossed on this issue.
My problem has been on the permissions of an internal drive (of the spinning disk variety) that I have converted to APFS. I want the resizable volume feature. I backup up using Carbon Copy Cloner (very latest at the time) and reformatted the drive entirely, instead of converting from HFS+ to APFS. I then used CCC to copy my files back across. I have since had problems on some folders where the permissions are set as I need them but I get the 'no entry' sign on the folder. If I double click then I am told that I do not have permissions to open the folder, but strangely if I click the triangle then the files within appear. I then have the same problem with some enclosed folders.

I have since recopied some of the entire folders from my backup to the new APFS volume and the problem has gone away.

This may be a purely CCC problem, but I am not convinced. I will send this to the CCC developers as well.

3. go to /users right click on the corupted user folder and select Get Info

4. extend permission tab at the bottom. Click on cogwheel and select "apply to enclosed items..."

That will incorrectly set the permissions on the files in the home folder to allow all other users read access to the files.

I tried this, but no go. When I log-in as the new user, it appears that the system reverts to default. The files and folders on my desktop do not appear, nor are they accessible by icloud drive, the dock is the default dock. Ridiculous that, as the owner of the mac and the only person who uses it, I should have to authenticate everything.

Jerry3835swift wrote:

I tried this, but no go. When I log-in as the new user, it appears that the system reverts to default.

Well, yes. Each user account is separate from each other. If the new account works correctly and you can't get the old account working correctly, you will need to move all of your data to that new account.

hi pwajcowicz,

I just wanted to extend a BIG THANK YOU for contributing your simple but effective solution. I went through so many resources that did not produce the results I thought I had to manually change them one by one.

Yes! it did help.

All the best

Not successful here.

Using OZX 10.132. I followed these instructions twice and got this message: An unexpected error occurred (error code -60002). I am an admin on this imac. How can I get around this.

-60002 error means that you are not authorised to perform the operation. On which step this error happens?