Once, you could run diskutil to ‘fix’ broken permissions in your Home folder, then it was replaced by repairHomePermissions in Recovery. Apple no longer documents this, but it’s still there. Should you use it?
PermissionScanner
We used to repair permissions of the system until SIP. After a short break, we often repaired them again, this time on preference files. Why did Apple cancel that? Should we still try it for fixing problems?
Now runs native on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. With a comparison of results between 10.15 and 11.0.
When nothing seems able to get that preference setting right, don’t abandon hope – follow this instead.
In the last few days, Apple has again changed its recommended procedure for resetting or repairing permissions on […]
Additional to the protected folders listed in the Privacy pane, macOS has a secret list of files which are also read-only. Apple hasn’t documented these.
When a file’s permissions are set to allow the user to write to it, but an app testing whether the file is writable is told that it isn’t.
Can now explain what is wrong with a file’s permissions, and can scan any folder of you choice.
New and more reliable version of a tool to check whether Home folder permissions are correct or causing problems.
Q: Can an app running from this user account read/write this file? It should be simple to answer, but reality isn’t as kind.
The Eclectic Light Company 