Apple Home Folder Permissions

Today, I had the pleasure of migrating a user from a MacBook to a MacBookPro.  Apple includes this cool tool call  the “Migration Utility” which allows you to link the old and new computer together either by firewire or ethernet and then transfer all Applications, Documents, Settings, etc. from the old to the new.

After completing the transfer process, I was having issues updating a few applications and accessing files in the user’s Home Folder on the new computer.  After some research, I discovered that these issues are usually caused by permission issues.  I opened Disk Utility to Verify and Repair Permissions on the disk but to no avail. I was still having issues.

Then, I stumbled across this a post that suggested  removing the ACL’s (Access Control Lists) and restoring them.  Here is how I did that:

1. Login as the user having issues and open the Terminal.app in the Utilities folder
2. Type the following command and hit enter:    sudo chmod -RN ~
3. You will be prompted for a password, enter it and hit enter
4. Type the following command (pay attention to the correct symbols) and hit enter:   sudo chown -R `id -un`
5. Reboot your computer from your Install disk (Leopard or Snow Leopard dvd) by making sure the dvd is in the drive and holding “C” down while booting the computer.
6. Select your language and continue
7. At the top of the screen, select “Utilities” and then “Reset Password”
8. Select the username that you want to reset the ACL’s and then click the option to do so in the lower right corner.
9. Reboot the computer upon completion.

Permission issues resolved!