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  • DaveStephens

    Posted: 30 April 2012 10:05 PM

    I may have done this to myself, but I somehow changed the permission on all my documents and can’t save to previous files.
    In the Get Info Window, I have this list of permissions

    everybody-custom
    Dave (me) Read & Write
    groups-read and write
    everybody-read and write

    the description above the box says that I have custom permissions

    I created a root user and logged in as root and tried to change permission to me as owner the document folder and then said apply to all contents, but that didn’t fix the problem

    I have 20+ years of accumulated files and documents and can’t save them without individually changing the permission window to

    everybody-read and write
    Dave (me) Read & Write
    groups-read and write
    everybody-read and write

    How do I get rid of the duplicate everybody and get my name as owner at the top of the list?

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    Screen Shot 2012-04-30 at 9.04.28 PM.png

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    Dave Stephens
    London ON Canada

         

  • cb50dc

    Avatar

    Posted: 01 May 2012 02:08 PM #1

    A possible help: the donationware BatChmod from http://www.lagentesoft.com/batchmod/index.html

    NOTE ITS SECOND PARAGRAPH: “If none of this makes sense to you, maybe BatChmod is not for you grin It has the potential to mangle your files if you do not know what you are doing. ESPECIALLY if you change the permission of your whole disk at once… just don?t do that.”

    Assuming that doesn’t worry you, consider this:
    1. Got redundant bootable clones? If not, make a couple. Don’t do ANYTHING else until that’s done.
    2. THEN—even though you now have backups—minimize the stress by picking a fairly low-value folder of assorted files. Try BatChmod with it.
    3. If it works, try it on a couple of other folders, including some nested folders.
    4. If it saves your bacon, share the love with the developer. Donationware, remember.

    Good luck.

         

  • DaveStephens

    Posted: 01 May 2012 03:56 PM #2

    If I went the ‘nuke and pave’ route, and restored from my Time Machine back-up would the system files still be an issue or should I re-install the OS Lion again too?
    Thoughts? Comments?

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    Dave Stephens
    London ON Canada

         

  • Intruder

    Avatar Administrator

    Posted: 01 May 2012 05:23 PM #3

    Couldn’t you just get info on the documents folder, set the permissions and then click on the gear at the bottom right side and apply those permissions to everything enclosed in the folder?

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    Mac switchers see my profile for switching help…

         

  • DaveStephens

    Posted: 01 May 2012 08:38 PM #4

    That’s how it all started and it’s gone straight downhill since then

    Signature

    Dave Stephens
    London ON Canada

         

  • Intruder

    Avatar Administrator

    Posted: 02 May 2012 12:24 PM #5

    Ahh. Sorry. Missed that in the original post.

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    Mac switchers see my profile for switching help…

         

  • Dave Hamilton

    Avatar Administrator

    Posted: 09 May 2012 11:04 AM #6

    You may be able to solve this by repairing your *user* permissions (i.e. ACLs or Access Control Lists). This is quite different from the standard “Repair Permissions” in Disk Utility, and requires booting from your Lion Recovery Partition or your OS X DVD. Jim Tanous detailed these instructions for us in our “How to Repair User-Level Permissions in Mac OS X” article here at TMO, complete with screenshots and all. Hopefully that will help!

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    -Dave Hamilton / The Mac Observer / Mac Geek Gab / Dave on Twitter
    When you find a big kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it.

         
     

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