Dumb question from OSX newbie

satchmosatchmo
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Okay I admit it, I'm still primarily on 9.2.2 but that's only because at work they haven't made the switch.



So I'm forced to slowly pick up OSX at home. But after a long day on the computer, I'm not in the mood to do the same at home.



I'm on 10.2.8 and it seems as if I cannot change any of the file names on my hard drive. I can't even seem to delete a file by dragging it to the trash. I get a message saying "it cannot be moved to the trash because it cannot be deleted"



But this seems to only happen on the root level of the hard drive. Did I lock something? I don't recall having this problem a few months ago.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    It may have been that at some point in the past your permissions were screwed up, (or they may be now).



    Try 'Repair Permissions' in Disk Utility, then try it again.



    If it still acts that way, it's supposed to.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    Sounds like an issue of file ownership and permissions. Crl-click on the file, open Get Info, look a File Ownership and Permissions and ensure that you have Read and Write access. If you don't then give it to yourself, although you may have to provide an administrator name and password to do this. You can change the permissions for all the files in a folder by Crt-cliking on the folder, opening Get Info, and following the same procedure, ensuring that you choose to apply the changes to all enclosed files.



    You may want to do a bit of reading about adminstrators, user accounts, and ownership and permissions on OS X. "Help" has some information, but you may also want to buy an OS X Manual (such as David Pogue's "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual").
  • Reply 3 of 6
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by satchmo

    Okay I admit it, I'm still primarily on 9.2.2 but that's only because at work they haven't made the switch.



    So I'm forced to slowly pick up OSX at home. But after a long day on the computer, I'm not in the mood to do the same at home.



    I'm on 10.2.8 and it seems as if I cannot change any of the file names on my hard drive. I can't even seem to delete a file by dragging it to the trash. I get a message saying "it cannot be moved to the trash because it cannot be deleted"



    But this seems to only happen on the root level of the hard drive. Did I lock something? I don't recall having this problem a few months ago.

    Thanks for bearing with me.



    The reason that you can't delete things from the "root" level of your hard drive is because the "root" level of your hard drive belongs to "root." This is as it should be. My suggestion is that is you don't know these things, then you are better off not deleting "root" files until you learn a lot more than you know now.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    What where you trying to delete?
  • Reply 5 of 6
    satchmosatchmo Posts: 2,699member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    It may have been that at some point in the past your permissions were screwed up, (or they may be now).



    Try 'Repair Permissions' in Disk Utility, then try it again.



    If it still acts that way, it's supposed to.



    I tried what Kickaha recommended and it worked. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    You should keep all your files in your "Home" folder, and asides from the Application folder, you generally do not need to mess with files elsewhere.
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