Help for a relative newly please

[TheBassBagwhan]

Hi everyone, I'm an old hand at PC and slightly knowledgeable on Mac thanks to my wife's MacBook, but I've literally inherited an iMac 2015, 27 inch, 3.2 GHZ Quad core i5, 16GB Ram... and some of the simplest tasks to get familiar with are defeating me. Google brings me close, but in this case I'm not finding an answer possibly because I have Monterey 12.6.5

So ... I can't move or copy any files from my Documents folder, although I can put anything in it. I'm guessing it's a permissions thing which I've changed for the folder, but it's still not happening and my next guess is the permissions settings for the entire internal system drive.

But I can't "see" the drive as a whole in Finder and System Preferences/General doesn't appear to have an option to make it visible. I am the Administrator. Apart from fixing this, are there any other "global" settings I should apply?

I intend to mostly use it as a second DAW (Presonus) with a small Focusrite interface, when my larger studio (PC) is too cold or I can't be bothered going downstairs. Really, if I buy an external drive, it's probably slightly better spec'd than my Windows DAW.

Thanks for any help. Sorry for the basic stuff.

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

Welcome. Can you elaborate on how you changed the Documents folder? Please share screenshots of the issue and anything that you think is incorrect.

 

[TheBassBagwhan]

Welcome. Can you elaborate on how you changed the Documents folder? Please share screenshots of the issue and anything that you think is incorrect.

Thanks for answering. I simply opened the Info dialogue box, changed the permissions to Read and Write, then unlocked the padlock icon (which prompted my password). This didn't seem to work, so before digging deeper I assumed there was some basic setting I needed to change. On my wife's MacBook the internal drive is visible/listed in the left hand side of Finder as a Location. But I'm not even seeing that on my iMac. Cheers.

 

[TheBassBagwhan]

Just adding some information ... after some experimenting, I can shuffle files around the Mac internally no problem, but I can't move them from any internal folder onto any external drive/USB stick, etc...

 

[rottnjohn]

What are you using to move the files? Is there an error message?

If you want the disk to show up in Finder, open a Finder window, select Preferences in
the upper left (menu bar), look at the General and Sidebar tabs in the Finder Preferences window.

 

[TheBassBagwhan]

Thanks RottnJohn, I was just about to update and say I'd found this solution - but thanks a heap anyway. So now my only (pending) problem is why I can't drag any files onto an external drive of any sort, even though I can drag them the other way from the USB (for example) onto the Mac ... if it was a drive format issue, I shouldn't be able to do either, right?

 

[TheBassBagwhan]

I'm just doing drag-and-drop between two Finder Windows. Onto the Mac is fine, off the Mac and I get the Ghostbuster icon and any file just boomerangs back where it came from ... I've tried a couple of drives now. Same thing.

 

[Fishrrman]

It's not a good idea to start changing permissions unless you're SURE of what the results will be.

I just looked at the default (unchanged) permissions for my own documents folder, and it shows:
(me) - read & write
staff - read only
everyone - read only

I'd suggest you revisit the documents folder and change things back to where they were. (assuming it was similar to mine above)

 

[rottnjohn]

Actually, that does sound like a "drive format issue." In your Finder window on the external usb drive,
can you make a "New Folder" (create a sub-directory)? If not, your disk might have a NTFS format.

You mentioned trying a "couple of drives" and also a "USB stick". Can you create a new folder on the USB stick?
Do have a spare/scratch drive, that can be wiped? In the long run, do you want to share the external disk with
a Windows computer?

With a scratch drive attached, open a Terminal window (Applications->Utilities->Terminal), type "mount" and
hit return. Post the output here. Include the name of the drive you are trying to move Documents to.

Alternatively open Disk Utility (Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility) and examine the external drive's filesystem.
Does it say NTFS or ExFAT ?

(I agree with Fishrrman about changing the permissions on the Documents folder back)

 

[TheBassBagwhan]

Thanks everyone, I'm in Australia so these suggestions came overnight. I'll tackle them today and let you know, however I think NTFS might be the culprit. Cheers!

 

[Fishrrman]

Without 3rd party apps, Mac OS can read NTFS but CANNOT write to it.

So... if you're trying to copy a file or folder from a Mac drive to an NTFS drive, it's not going to work UNLESS you install 3rd party software.

(you didn't mention "NTFS" in your original post)

 

[TheBassBagwhan]

Yes, thanks everyone, it's been (as I said) a real rookie misunderstanding. I didn't realise that Mac could read NTFS but not write to it, therefore I assumed the drives were compatible but somehow not accessible. (Sigh) This is going to be an interesting learning curve. Appreciate everyone's time and help. Cheers.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you're still reading...

I would advise you to use A DIFFERENT FORMAT for drives that will be exchanged between Mac and PC.

exFAT comes to mind.

For drives that will be used exclusively with the Mac, use a MAC format.
For SSDs -- either APFS or HFS+
For HDDs -- HFS+ (except for time machine, which requires APFS now).

 

[Gudi]

On my wife's MacBook the internal drive is visible/listed in the left hand side of Finder as a Location. But I'm not even seeing that on my iMac. Cheers.

Finder > Preferences... > Sidebar pane > Locations section > ☑️ Hard disks