Time Machine backups - no permission

[rsherid]

Using Catalina, I'm trying to open old files from a Time Machine backup on an external drive. But all my old files are permissions protected. For future backups, how can I set it by default so this doesn't keep happening?

 

[MacInWin]

How are you trying to open these files? Are you restoring them through TM or are you trying to use Finder? When did these files get backed up? Before converting to Catalina or since then? How did you install Catalina?

I ask because if you did a format/install of Catalina, then created an account and now are trying to coy these files using Finder, the new account is not seen as the same account, even if it looks the same to you.

So, give us some information and we can try to help with the issue, both to solve it and to prevent it going forward.

 

[rsherid]

In Finder from the external HD. They're from a 2013 backup (Garageband files) way before Catalina. It was a different Mac so there is a new account.

 

[MacInWin]

So, there is no real fix for all of those files. They ware backed up with a different operating system and a different account, so about all you can do is import them then fix the permissions through the Get Info panel to give yourself access. You might try bringing them from the external to a folder in the Shared account. That may eliminate the permissions, as Shared is the account used for transfer from one user to another. If you can get that to work, it might save a few steps. But that is a fairly major "if."

There is no way to get TM to stop doing what it does. Permissions are a major part of Mac security.

 

[Slydude]

Jake,

If a user account were created with the same account name, password, and access level (Admin, Standard, etc) does that solve part of the problem? I think I've done that with other other files but don't remember trying it with Time Machine. I know that doesn't get around the different drive formatting.

×

 

[ferrarr]

You can try to change file permissions on the external drive, Change permissions for files, folders, or disks on Mac - Apple Support.

 

[MacInWin]

Sly, from previous attempts, the name/password of the account are not the key to the permissions. Each user has an assigned system number, and that number is what is actually in the permissions system. And that number is somehow combined with the UUID of the Mac to create a unique identifier. So even if I have an account on one Mac, and exactly duplicate the name/password/access on a second Mac, files transferred from one machine to the other will have permissions issues, if the transfer is done through a mechanism that preserves security. And that is why Migration Assistant works if you use it BEFORE you create a new account but not so well if there is already an account created on the receiving system. Apparently MA has coding to allow it to establish the same user account on the target system as on the sending system, preserving security by setting the same password/access on the new as was set on the old. And as the files are migrated, the permissions are updated to the new account.

So, I don't think that will work. Drive formatting isn't critical, I suspect, as TM will change the format to the new as the files are restored. Now, a full drive restore would be a different thing, but the OP just wants these old files so the format of the drive should not matter.

I have banged my head on that particular challenge before and come up empty every time. About all you can do is to change permissions manually. Bob's suggestion of changing the permissions on the external drive is really risky as the files are not really files but TM backups and just about any action on those backups will break the database structure and render the whole thing unreadable.

What I recommend is to do the manual permissions change. They can be batched up into one folder and the change applied to all items in that folder to reduce the typing, but each file will need to be touched separately.

 

[Slydude]

Thanks for that explanation. I seem to recall moving some things from one Mac to another without issues. I don't remember if the files I moved were from a Time Machine backup but, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they weren't. IIRC the old Mac was used as the source drive and the new Mac was the destination in a CCC restore. When I moved things that was the first thing done on the new machine.