Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / March 2008

In article
<4f75a3ed-1db9-4bd2-99c9-fccc27a3c75c@q78g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,

Is the problem just with that one folder on the same disk drive as other
folders in your home directory? If so, it might be time to invest in the
latest copy of Disk Warrior and run it. Of course, its also a good idea
to back up your important files to optical disk or another hard drive.

In article
<4f75a3ed-1db9-4bd2-99c9-fccc27a3c75c@q78g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,

Using the Finder's Info window to view permissions doesn't showyou the
whole picture. For instance, execute permissions aren't shown. If you do
not have execute permissions, you won't be able to open the folder or
view its contents. Also, the Info window showing *you* as owner, rather
than the alternate user account is untrue, or misleading at best. You
should not be the owner of that folder. I advise you to use the command
line tool "ls" to view permissions instead. Here's the command to do so:

    ls -l /Users/username

Here's an example listing on Mac OS X 10.5:

    drwxr-xr-x   4 guest  guest   136B Jun 21  2007 Public

As you can see, the correct permissions are:

* owner has read, write, execute permission
* group and other have read and execute, but no write permission

You can set this with a one-line command in a terminal window:

    chmod u=rwx,go=rx /Users/you/Public

Do that and you should have access to the folder. If not, try restarting
the Finder in case it has the old settings cached.