Terminal 'permission denied' deleting from an external

[Joe Saponic]

Mac Pro mid-2012 running Sierra 12.6

I wiped my HDD (I’m still on mechanical, not SSD) and installed Sierra a few days ago (no srm any more of course). As a precaution I copied my Users and Applications folders to an external drive. My external drives are, like my systems drive, formatted in HFS. The problem is that I need securely to delete these two folders but can’t because of a ‘permission denied’ message in Terminal.

Again these were copies and I have the material I need so I’m less concerned that a large proportion of the roughly 130GB of data has suddenly and unaccountably vanished (I don’t know what happened there) than that permissions for the rest have me stumped. The ‘Get info’ route hasn’t worked for me.

I must emphasise that I’m no techie and have no knowledge of the command line, though by reading, treading carefully (and using copy-paste!) I’ve sampled various potential remedies from command line sources and none has worked. Here for example: http://speedysnail.com/2019/07/permission_denied.html

Something to do with originating as a systems folder presumably. One folder I have is called ‘Bastard Apple folder’ (don’t ask). I tried this using what meagre knowledge I’d acquired (making certain it asked me if I was sure in case I bottled it): rm -d -i /Volumes/8TB\ 1/Bastard\ Apple\ folder/ but no joy. ‘Permission denied’ again.

Can anyone help? Thanks.

 

[BrianBaughn]

NOTE: "rm" is for files and "rmdir" is for directories (folders).

You can try "sudo rmdir" (and enter your account password) to see if that gets around the permissions issue.

 

[Fishrrman]

Try this. It takes only a few seconds.

1. Connect the external drive that has the folders/files you want to delete.
2. Let the drive icon mount on the desktop
3. Click on the drive icon ONE TIME to select it.
4. Bring up the "get info" box for the drive (command-i)
5. At the bottom of get info, click the lock and enter your password
6. Put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
7. Close get info.

NOW drag the folders/files you want to get rid of to the trash.
Do they go to the trash?
If so, try emptying the trash.
Any better this way?

 

[Joe Saponic]

NOTE: "rm" is for files and "rmdir" is for directories (folders).

You can try "sudo rmdir" (and enter your account password) to see if that gets around the permissions issue.

Thanks for helping but I tried sudo, as per the link, and it didn't work.

 

[maternidad]

6. Put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)

This writing isn't displayed by my device (running macOS Big Sur 11.4). However,

I found I could open the Get Info window of the disk, enable read and write permissions, click on a … icon, and then click Apply to enclosing items. My assumption is that it will facilitate the deletion of files in the disk; the process currently hasn't finished.

 

[Joe Saponic]

Try this. It takes only a few seconds.

1. Connect the external drive that has the folders/files you want to delete.
2. Let the drive icon mount on the desktop
3. Click on the drive icon ONE TIME to select it.
4. Bring up the "get info" box for the drive (command-i)
5. At the bottom of get info, click the lock and enter your password
6. Put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
7. Close get info.

NOW drag the folders/files you want to get rid of to the trash.
Do they go to the trash?
If so, try emptying the trash.
Any better this way?

I tried the 'Get info' method and it failed. Doing it your way produced better results. I managed to get the folder to the Trash and delete it - though not before it asked for my password (itself a permissions malfunction coming from an external drive as I understand it). I'll probably run into more of the same unless I get this sorted out properly, but at any rate a remedy of sorts and for that I'm grateful Fishrrman, to you and to everyone who tried to help.

Much appreciated