Can I restrict access to some individual folders?

Poked around searching under "passwords" and variations without meaningful result so trying here.

From time to time, I'll be turning my iMac over to others to use and become familiar with. I don't much care what they do and I'm well backed up but I would like to lock them out of my "Documents" folder. Perhaps a few other individual folders also.

How to?

ctrl+click the file you want to set permissions on, click "Get Info," go under "Permissions" select from the drop down menus which permissions you want to set for each users (yourself, other users, etc)

check out http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh669.html for further help.

You could also create another profile and call it "guest" or something like that. That will keep them out of your stuff.

edit: by profile, I mean user account.

punkr0x0r said:

ctrl+click the file you want to set permissions on, click "Get Info," go under "Permissions" select from the drop down menus which permissions you want to set for each users (yourself, other users, etc)

check out http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh669.html for further help.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Exactly what I needed!

i highly suggest creating a seperate user account for these people so that they can go and do whatever they please including delete all thier information and it wont affect your account at all.
-chris

coach_z said:

i highly suggest creating a seperate user account for these people so that they can go and do whatever they please including delete all thier information and it wont affect your account at all.
-chris

Click to expand...

I agree. If you are going to let others use your notebook on even an occasional basis, setting up a dummy user account is a more viable option.
That way, none of your settings, data or information is accessible.
:black:

D3v1L80Y said:

I agree. If you are going to let others use your notebook on even an occasional basis, setting up a dummy user account is a more viable option.
That way, none of your settings, data or information is accessible.
:black:

Click to expand...

Well, there's the rub. The people I'm talking about will all be trusted family members. I want them to have access to almost everything so they can see what I've done and and what I'm doing. However, on "general principals" I don't want them to be able to access some folders intentionally or by accident. I want open access to everything except a few folders I want to keep confidential.

asolo said:

Well, there's the rub. The people I'm talking about will all be trusted family members. I want them to have access to almost everything so they can see what I've done and and what I'm doing. However, on "general principals" I don't want them to be able to access some folders intentionally or by accident. I want open access to everything except a few folders I want to keep confidential.

Click to expand...

you can still do that and not allow them to see all those things you dont want them to see with user accounts. when setting up the other account you can select what other users have acces too
-chris

coach_z said:

you can still do that and not allow them to see all those things you dont want them to see with user accounts. when setting up the other account you can select what other users have acces too
-chris

Click to expand...

OK, I think I'm getting this...albeit slowly. Will consider this good advice more closely. Thanks.

D3v1L80Y said:

I agree. If you are going to let others use your notebook on even an occasional basis, setting up a dummy user account is a more viable option.
That way, none of your settings, data or information is accessible.
:black:

Click to expand...

If you do it that way your grandmother probably wont accidentally come across "A night in Paris" or "Anal Invaders"... :spook:

You could also create an encrypted disk image and treat it as just another folder, though it won't expand automatically as more stuff is added. If you need a larger one, just create another and drag everything into it.

Start Disk Utility and under File in the menu bar go to New, then slide over to Blank Disk Image. A window will pop up, allowing you to choose the disk-image size and whether you want to encrypt it.

If you want to hide the encrypted disk-image file itself, a good place is in an application. Go into the Applications folder and choose Chess, for instance. Right click/Control click it and choose Show Package Contents, then drag the disk-image file (not the hard-drive icon it generates and the stuff inside) into the folder.

Disk images always open on the desktop, so you can't hide that hard-drive icon. You have to eject it.