How to disable requirement to enter password

Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Messages
3,626
Reaction score
111
Points
63
Your Mac's Specs
2018 15" MBP, 2019 11" iPad Pro, iPhone 11 Pro
I was fooling around with different methods of taking screen shots and some combination of keys that I tried turned on a requirement to enter my password when dragging any file to the trash.

I've made sure that none of my files are locked. They are not, never were, and that's not the problem.

I verified/repaired permissions using Disk Utility in my Apps>Utilities folder and also via Lion Recovery (restart, hold Command+R). Did not solve my problem.

Made sure that I have Read/Write privileges for all files using Command+I. I'm using administrator account (always have) and nothing's changed there. Not the solution.

So I'm out of ideas. I've read a few things via Google searches about different commands in terminal, but they don't really sound like my exact issue. I can drag to trash and even empty trash, but it just requires my password every time. It's annoying and never done this before so I'm certain that it has to do with my playing around with shift+command+various keys.

Any ideas?
 

vansmith

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
19,924
Reaction score
559
Points
113
Location
Queensland
Your Mac's Specs
Mini (2014, 2018, 2020), MBA (2020), iPad Pro (2018), iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch (S6)
I'm not sure what you've done but it sounds as if the permissions to the Trash folder itself has been changed. By default, the trash folder for each user has "700" permissions (that's Unix notation). Let's first of all check the permissions on that folder. Open up Terminal and type the following:
Code:
ls -la | grep ~/.Trash
You should get something very similar to the following:
Code:
drwx------    4 vansmith  staff    136  1 Jan 19:13 .Trash
We're interested in the first column (the drwx------). That tells us what the permissions are. The d at the beginning tells us that we're dealing with a directory. The nine characters after it can be broken down into three groups. The first three characters represent your permissions (in this case, you have read (r), write (w) and execute (x) permissions), the second three are group permissions and the final three are "other." As you can tell, we're interested in the first three.
 
OP
MYmacROX
Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Messages
3,626
Reaction score
111
Points
63
Your Mac's Specs
2018 15" MBP, 2019 11" iPad Pro, iPhone 11 Pro
I'm not sure what you've done but it sounds as if the permissions to the Trash folder itself has been changed. By default, the trash folder for each user has "700" permissions (that's Unix notation). Let's first of all check the permissions on that folder. Open up Terminal and type the following:
Code:
ls -la | grep ~/.Trash

Didn't work. No results, nothing. Just a new line with the name of my MBP.


Sounds to me like he accidentally turned on Secure Trash.

In Finder>Preferences, Empty Trash Securely is not checked.
 
C

chas_m

Guest
When in doubt, the first place I'd look is Parental Controls and Universal Access.
 
OP
MYmacROX
Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Messages
3,626
Reaction score
111
Points
63
Your Mac's Specs
2018 15" MBP, 2019 11" iPad Pro, iPhone 11 Pro
When in doubt, the first place I'd look is Parental Controls and Universal Access.

Yeah, I've poked around in all those areas and still can't figure it out.

I'm probably going to just go back to my last Time Machine backup (about a week ago).
 

vansmith

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
19,924
Reaction score
559
Points
113
Location
Queensland
Your Mac's Specs
Mini (2014, 2018, 2020), MBA (2020), iPad Pro (2018), iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch (S6)
Whoops, my mistake. You need to run this from your home directory in Terminal (it defaults here so you don't have to change dirs):
Code:
ls -la | grep .Trash
I should have realized that the first one I gave you wouldn't work (I won't get into the details unless you'd like them).
 
OP
MYmacROX
Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Messages
3,626
Reaction score
111
Points
63
Your Mac's Specs
2018 15" MBP, 2019 11" iPad Pro, iPhone 11 Pro
Whoops, my mistake. You need to run this from your home directory in Terminal (it defaults here so you don't have to change dirs):
Code:
ls -la | grep .Trash
I should have realized that the first one I gave you wouldn't work (I won't get into the details unless you'd like them).

Ok, thanks for that.

This is what I got when I typed that command in Terminal:

drwx------ 6 root staff 204 Dec 29 21:09 .Trash
 
Joined
Jul 22, 2013
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
What is answer to problem

Ok, thanks for that.

This is what I got when I typed that command in Terminal:

Same problem; this is what I got
drwx------ 20 root staff 680 Jul 19 07:51 .Trash

So what is answer? How do I get my mac to stop asking for a password everytime i trash something?
 

vansmith

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
19,924
Reaction score
559
Points
113
Location
Queensland
Your Mac's Specs
Mini (2014, 2018, 2020), MBA (2020), iPad Pro (2018), iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch (S6)
Execute the following:
Code:
sudo chown <username> .Trash/
Replace <username> with your user name (if you don't know what that is, execute whoami). When prompted, enter your password and press enter.
 
Joined
Jul 28, 2013
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Variation on the trash problem

Hi, all. My first post on Mac forum. I was brought here with the same issue, trying to delete a ton of RAW photo files that were not needed and ran into the same of having to put a name and password in. I checked around the web and eventually landed here. I tried everything that was suggested, but kept getting "<myname> is not in the sudoer folder. The incident will be reported." The computer I use is owned by my company, but with tech support as the admin. Because I use my laptop so much (and am well versed in writing language and keeping my computer update to date on all problems) they let me have the admin name and password. But, they asked that when I log in, to use the "Standard" login, not the admin one. Well, a light went off in my head. I changed my permission to "Administrator" in the "Users and Groups," restarted the computer. I then went back to the Terminal program, tried your fix for the problem, and voila, it worked! So, it seems not to work unless you have administration powers, or, at least that is how it finally worked for me. I just thought some future readers with the same problem would want to know. MANY THANKS for the fix!
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top