Folder Permissions in Terminal

Discussion in 'macOS' started by hyperpasta, Mar 31, 2009.

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  1. hyperpasta, Mar 31, 2009

    hyperpasta macrumors 6502a

    hyperpasta

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2005
    Location:
    New Jersey
    #1
    Hello,

    I am writing this on my shiny new 24" iMac. :)

    My old G5 broke, and rather than doing a full recover from the Time Machine Hard Drive, I decided to start from scratch, importing only the files I need. The problem is that this completely screwed up all my permissions. Most of my folders are read only. I can fix permissions for folders one at a time, and I can apply the permissions to the folder's immediate contents, but this is tedious and does not seem to fix deeply nested folders.

    So the question is:

    Is there something I can type into Terminal that will give me Read & Write access to every folder, folder within a folder, folder within a folder within a folder, etc. in my home directory? I am a complete Terminal novice.
     
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  2. angelwatt, Mar 31, 2009

    angelwatt Moderator emeritus

    angelwatt

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2005
    Location:
    USA
    #2
    I believe this should do it.
    Code:
    chmod 755 folder/*
    Just make sure to point the path correctly and only do it for documents and such, and not system files as it could have very adverse effects on your machine. For instance, don't apply this directory to your home folder as it could mess something up in your Library folder.
     
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  3. RoninXI, Mar 31, 2009

    RoninXI macrumors regular

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2006
    Location:
    Vermilion, Ohio
    #3
    If you want to change something like your documents folder including everything in it
    Code:
    chmod -R 755 /Users/SHORTNAME/Documents
    the -R means recursive (everything inside the folder) Make especially sure you don't do this to your home folder like angelwatt said. This would change your Library folder's contents as well.
     
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