# Changing OS X file permissions en masse

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-os-x-file-permissions-en-masse/146757>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 5, 2003, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-os-x-file-permissions-en-masse/146757 "2003-01-05T09:04:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2003, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-os-x-file-permissions-en-masse/146757/1 "2003-01-05T09:04:20Z")

</div>

I’m running OS 10.2.3 on a powerbook G4. For some reason or other, my machine starting locking up spontaneously and at random, requiring a restart. I created a new login and switched to that, which seems to have solved the problem. But now my login doesn’t have read/write access to many of my files, particularly preference files. I can change the permissions on files one-at-a-time in the Applications Info window, but that is very tedious. Is there some way to effectively give all the permissions of my old login to my new login at once?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2003, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-os-x-file-permissions-en-masse/146757/2 "2003-01-05T10:35:12Z")

</div>

I’ve never had to do this, but I hear [BatChmod](http://macchampion.com/arbysoft/) is good and it sounds like what you need.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-os-x-file-permissions-en-masse/146757/3 "2003-01-05T15:51:27Z")

</div>

Another option is [xFiles](http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/xfiles.html). I’ve never used it for the specific purpose you describe, but it does have the capacity to do batch-permission changes.

Also, BrickHouse and MacJanitor by the same programmer are very handy to have around. Look into 'em.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-os-x-file-permissions-en-masse/146757/4 "2003-01-06T11:50:04Z")

</div>

If you’re not afraid of the terminal, you can do it with the Terminal program:

sudo chmod -R 700 ~user  
This will make the whole folder read/write/execute for the owner, but nobody else – check out “man chmod” in the terminal for other values. For example, you may want to do sudo chmod -R 740 ~user/Shared for your shared folder, or sudo chmod -R 702 ~user/DropBox if you want to create a write-only dropbox.

Also, consider:

sudo chown -R user ~user

which will ensure that “user” is the owner of everything in “~user” – the permissions may be okay, but somehow the owner may have gotten messed up.