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Forum Discussion
"Dropbox needs to change permissions" message on startup
Lately, every time I start my Mac (OS 10.14.6) I get a message that reads (in full):
"Dropbox needs to change permissions for the Folder: /Users/[name]/Dropbox
Enter your password to allow this"...
Hi Rachel R.2,
Can you try following commands in terminal:
sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" chmod -R u+rw "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
Will be asked for your password (sudo).
Hope this helps. :wink:
Hi Rachel R.2,
Can you try following commands in terminal:
sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" chmod -R u+rw "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
Will be asked for your password (sudo).
Hope this helps. :wink:
Ignorant me, is $USER a "wildcard" or I need to type my user, with or without $ in front?
As it is, copy pasted line by line, did not work.....
Hi FreddoArgento,
First when you comment something, clarify what exactly you have been comenthing, so to be more clear what you are talking about. Doesn't matter where you touch "Reply", your text will go at the end every time!
FreddoArgento wrote:... is $USER a "wildcard" or I need to type my user, ...
When you type a $ symbol on a command line the name, sticked next to this symbol, represent particular shell environment variable. This is NOT wildcard! There is a set of environment variables preset by the system which could be used in user commands or shell scripts, when convenient. You can see available preset variables using the "env" command, all together. 😉
The variable with name USER keeps inside the login name of your account. You can see what's inside using following:
echo $USER
The $ symbol is a special sign, for most environment shells, making a referral to the particular variable (i.e. $USER will get replaced with your login name). You can use your login name directly, of course. Here $USER is used as a convenience - different users have different login names - $USER always refers to them correctly ( if not explicitly changed! ). That's it.
Hope this clarifies matter.
If something goes wrong, despite of above, post in you next reply what you have typed on the command line and the corresponding result all together.
Good luck.
Hi,
I have recently turned on Dropbox Backup (for home and desktop folders) and am now getting the permissions request message "Dropbox needs to change permiossions for the Folder: /Users/drmarkcarter/Dropbox" (twice) after each restart. I tried the following terminal commands:
sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox" chmod -R u+rw "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
The first two commands run fine but for the third and fourth I receive the following error messages:
chown: /Users/drmarkcart/Dropbox/My Mac (Mark-Carters-Macbook-Retina-3.local)/Desktop/Incompatible Software/qmasterd: Operation not permitted
chmod: Unable to change file mode on /Users/drmarkcart/Dropbox/My Mac (Mark-Carters-Macbook-Retina-3.local)/Desktop/Incompatible Software/qmasterd: Operation not permitted
Any suggestions?
mcarter wrote:chown: /Users/drmarkcart/Dropbox/My Mac (Mark-Carters-Macbook-Retina-3.local)/Desktop/Incompatible Software/qmasterd: Operation not permitted
Hi mcarter,
That's strange. Are you sure you have typed the command correctly? i.e. you haven't skipped the leading "sudo" and the command is:
sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
but not something like:
chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
🤔
Can you post the result of following commands:
ls -ld "/Users/drmarkcart/Dropbox/My Mac (Mark-Carters-Macbook-Retina-3.local)/Desktop/Incompatible Software/qmasterd"
id🧐 Hope result will shed some light.
PS: By the way, as the issue seems come from "backup" folders, you can try turn your "Computer Backup" feature off and (if you wish) turn on at the end. Take a look on part "Turn off computer backup" (near the topic end) and at point 6 select "Keep content in folders on this PC/Mac", not "Leave content in Dropbox".
Let's hope this twisting will do the trick for you. 😉
