Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How to restore permissions for username "system"?

S

sparky672

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 17, 2004
565
266
I was having a heck of a time with the OWC SSD in my old Mac Pro (High Sierra 10.13.6) and ended up re-installing High Sierra from scratch and using Migration Assistant to restore the rest from Time Machine.

Along the way, I managed to bungle up my Home folder somehow and in the process of "fixing" permissions I ended up replacing the "system" user with my username. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to get that "system" username back.

I believe the last place with screwy permissions is my Applications folder, where the permissions show my name in place of where "system" should be:

Screen Shot 2025-05-08 at 3.06.59 PM.png

How do get "system" back onto the Application folder? BTW, everything inside the Applications folder is correct or has already been fixed by manually replacing them all from a Time Machine version. I have not tested everything, but so far my applications seem to work ok, even when logged in as another user.

1. How to fix permissions on Application folder with "system" username?

2. Is there a reputable app that can verify (repair) all system and user permissions on High Sierra? (Apple removed this from Terminal and Disk Utility)

Thank you!
 
Last edited:
bogdanw said:
Get BatChmod, select Owner: root and Apply.
batchmod_17b5.zip https://web.archive.org/web/20220914084330/http://lagentesoft.com/resources/batchmod_17b5.zip

Discussed here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/batchmod-alternatives.2394659/
Click to expand...

Thank you! These are the settings I tried.

Screen Shot 2025-05-09 at 11.12.01 AM.png

I clicked "Apply" and entered my admin password. I got the "Donate" message so I assumed success.

However, the changes did not seem to get applied:

Screen Shot 2025-05-09 at 11.12.22 AM.png

Unless I am misunderstanding how this works?

Below are the permissions from "Applications" in the Time Machine backup, so I am assuming the permissions on the current "Mac SSD/Applications" folder should be the same as they were here in the past. Does "system" automatically change to "Me" when I am logged in as Admin?

Screen Shot 2025-05-09 at 11.19.08 AM.png
 
Last edited:
chabig said:
This is how it’s supposed to look. You on top, admin next, and everyone else last.


View attachment 2509441
Click to expand...

Thank you for the reassurance. I appreciate this. Can I ask you what Utilities folder should look like? I ask because I am only sure of these things:

• I screwed up permissions originally with my user account, and may have done something to break the app permissions.
• The permissions as shown on Applications folder via my last good TM backup show "system" as owner.
• The permissions on the Applications folder on a new MacBook also show "system" as the owner, for whatever that is worth to High Sierra I don't know.
 
This Terminal command should change the owner to 'root', which is what Finder shows as "system":
Code: 
sudo chown root /Applications
This will prompt for a password, and you should enter the password of your admin account. If your account isn't an admin, then you'll need to login with that account first.

The password you type in will NOT be echoed to the screen, so be sure to type it in carefully. When typed in, press the Return key.

After the command runs, you can repeat the 'ls' command I gave earlier. It should show 'root' as the owner. If not, please post again.

EDIT

The 'sunlnk' flag shown in the 'ls' output is related to System Integrity Protection. If that's enabled, you may be unable to alter the owner of /Applicaitons. So if the above 'sudo chown' doesn't result in 'root' owning /Applications, you'll probably need to disable SIP and try it again.

 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back