We Are the Road Crëw: Repairing Permissions

Let's talk about Permissions today, specifically, Repairing them.

Look, I haven't had to ask Permission for anything since I was in High School, and I'm in no need of repair either. I see.

Good. Hush. Every file and folder on a Mac OS X System has a set of "Flags" that tell the System who is and who isn't allowed to Read, Write and/or Delete them. This can be very important to know if you find programs acting (Technical term alert!) wonky. You really don't need to know all the technical details, however if you're interested, (GeekSquad Alert!) here is a great overview of Mac OS X Privileges.

Boom. Was that ... Yes, that was my head exploding ... again.You really don't need to know or even understand any of that.What you do need to know is that sometimes Permissions, like Preference Files (See:Deleting Preference Files) can get corrupted.

When this happens all manner of oddities can occur. Thankfully it's SO simple to repair permissions that you can do it with ease at any time.

Yeah right, here we go again. It'll start off simple and then get crazy. Look don't panic, all you have to do is run a program and click a button.

Promise? Promise. Make sure Finder is active by clicking on its icon in the Dock

Open a new Finder Window

Select "Utilities" from the "Go" Menu

Scroll down to find Disk Utility, and launch it

And once it opens, select your Hard drive in the list at the Top Left

Make sure the "First Aid" tab is selected

And lastly, click the "Repair Permissions" button

You'll likely see lots of text scroll by as it checks things, and when it's done you should see something that looks like this

That's it, you're done.

I'm done? You're done. I kinda feel the same. ::Sigh:: I'm just having fun with you, that really was easy. Glad to hear it.

If you happen to be friends with Mr.Safety (You can always spot him in a crowd, he wears a belt AND suspenders) he would tell you it's good practice to repair permissions before and after you install any software, especially OS updates and upgrades.

I think I'll see about making friends with Mr. Safety, he sounds like a good person to know.

I think, for you, yeah, definitely.

Was this information helpful? Yes / No

Tutorial Index