Managing Permissions for multiple users

[jpike_mbp]

I'm running Sonoma 14.6.1 on a M1 Mac Studio. I haven't needed to do this in a while, but if I recall, at some point just using the "Shared" folder worked fine for me, but now I'm having issues.

What I need: Multiple users profiles on the same machine, able to work on files in the same folder. They need read and write permissions in this folder. I would also like for them all to be able to not have issues using Photoshop. For some reason, each user profile has to login to Photoshop/Creative Cloud every time.

All users are mainly using Capture One, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Bridge. I tried to do all of this with the shared folder- but no matter what I do it never seems to stay as "Read and Write"

I've gone in and clicked "Get Info" unlocked the lock, and even clicked on apply to enclosed items, and that works for a second- although it does weird things to Capture One (change "Capture folder" is greyed out) that may just be specific to that app. But, any new items put into that folder are still locked.

Even worse, when I as an admin come to take files from the other users, they still locked down, and I have to unlock them everytime I change something and change permissions.

In the old days when I digi teched I swear we would always put C1 sessions in the shared folder to make sure that anyone could access in case of an admin issue.

Can anyone advise me on how to set up an actual Shared folder, with shared read and write permissions amongst all users on a single machine? Am I missing something here? It really seems like Apple doesn't want me to do this.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Put it in /Users/Shared

 

[jpike_mbp]

Put it in /Users/Shared

I have been doing that. The problem is that the files in there don't have read and write permissions for all users on the machine. No matter what I do, users just get read access. When I try to change the permissions they last a little while and then revert.

I read somewhere that this can be a bug and is possible to fix with chmod in terminal. Does anyone know more about this as a bug?

 

[chown33]

I suspect it's the default setting of umask that is the obstacle. You can read about it with 'man umask' in Terminal.

To set a different umask for apps, see here:

Set a custom umask in macOS - Apple Support

Every file and folder on your Mac has a set of permissions. When you create a new file or folder, the umask determines these permissions.

support.apple.com

Here's a related article:

How do I set the umask for all applications running under a specific user?

Is there any way to set the default umask for GUI applications on a mac without modifying /etc/launchd.conf or similar? I want to change it for my account without affecting others.

superuser.com

Found with search terms: set macos umask

Note: there are security ramifications for changing umask, so be sure to read up on those before doing this.


The only other option I can think of is to use a file-system that lacks permissions, such as FAT32 or ExFAT. I think the OS will then map the lack of permissions to RW for all, and RWX for dirs and executables. An external disk would work for that, or a disk-image.

 

[Brian33]

While anyone can read and write to the /Users/Shared directory, any files created there will be writable by the owner, only. So by default, user2 can't modify a file created by user1.

Changing the default umask is one possible solution. I believe that certain special ACL (Access Control List) permissions could be another, but they are pretty tricky to figure out and set, at least from Terminal.

I think putting a disk image within /Users/Shared would be an easy solution. The volume on the image can be any format; just make sure it's set to "Ignore ownership on this volume" if it's APFS or HFS+. (Mount the disk image, right-click the volume, select Get Info, and look near the bottom of the window for the checkbox.)

The downside is that each user will have to double-click the disk image to mount it before transferring/editing the files.

 

[NoBoMac]

chmod command might be the answer. For example, here's a thread about something similar for SMB shares on Mac.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/shared-folder-smb-ownership-permissions-acl.2356908/

Once you figure out the combo of settings needed for your situation, will want to re-run the chmod command on the top folder with the -R option, to set all files/folders under top folder to have same permissions.

(Haven't messed with this myself, just know that it does exist)