Mac OS X v10.5: Renaming or saving after using "Apply to enclosed items" on a Home folder

Products Affected

Mac OS X 10.5

Symptoms

After using a Finder Info window's "Apply to enclosed items" feature on your Home folder in the Users folder, these things may occur in Mac OS X v10.5:

  • When moving items within your Home (such as from your desktop to your Documents folder), a prompt for an administrator's user name and password may always appear.
  • You may be unable to rename files or folders. This alert may appear: "You do not have sufficient access privileges to rename the item "(file or folder name)."
  • Messages may appear when attempting to save files: "(Name) could not be removed because you do not have appropriate access privileges. You do not have appropriate access privileges to save file '(name)' in folder '(name)'."

Resolution

  1. Log in as the affected user account.
  2. Open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities).
  3. Type this followed by Return:

    sudo chmod -RN ~

    Note: If the affected user has no account password, sudo will not work. See Sudo command requires a non-blank admin password for more details.

    Note: The character after "-RN" is a tilde (~).
     
  4. Start up from the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard installation DVD (insert the disc, restart, and hold the C key as the computer starts up).
  5. Choose Reset Password from the Utilities menu in the Installer.
  6. Select the Mac OS X 10.5 drive.
  7. Select the affected username.
  8. Click the "Reset" button in the "Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs" section.
  9. Quit the Reset Password application.
  10. Quit the Installer.
  11. Start up from the Mac OS X hard disk volume (not DVD).

    Note: Any custom access rights set for items in the Home folder will be removed.
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