# Mac OS X question ... locking a folder name?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-os-x-question-locking-a-folder-name/370356>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 26, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-os-x-question-locking-a-folder-name/370356 "2006-08-26T20:53:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-os-x-question-locking-a-folder-name/370356/1 "2006-08-26T20:53:10Z")

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My parents have a Mac that they mostly know how to use. But every month or so, they accidentally mash some keys and rename one of the folders on their desktop to “x90298x0” or “” or some such gobbledygook. Is there some way to lock the name of this folder? Locking files is simple enough, but folders don’t seem to allow it.

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**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-os-x-question-locking-a-folder-name/370356/2 "2006-08-26T21:22:51Z")

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Can you disable write permission for them on the folder **containing** that folder? (Unix renaming privileges for a file or directory depend on the write permission status associated with the containing directory.)

Doing that will also prevent them from adding or removing any files from the containing folder, or renaming anything else in it as well, which might be more restrictive than you want.