How do you change Read & Write permissions on external hard drive Mac?

Read-only is a file attribute, or a characteristic that the operating system assigns to a file. In this case, read-only means that the file can be only opened or read; you cannot delete, change, or rename any file that’s been flagged read-only.

To change the read-only attribute, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the file or folder icon.

2. Remove the check mark by the Read Only item in the file’s Properties dialog box.

   The attributes are found at the bottom of the General tab.

3. Click OK.

Likewise, you can set the read-only attribute by placing a check mark in the box. This ensures that the file cannot be changed or deleted. Well, it can’t be changed or deleted until someone removes the read-only attribute again.

• Files and folders you copy from an optical disc may inherit the read-only status. That’s because a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM is Read-Only (RO) media. After a file is copied from the optical disc, however, you can change its read-only status as described in the steps.

• The solid Read-Only check box in Windows 7 and Windows Vista refers to the file’s or folder’s permissions. The box may indicate that read-only permissions are set for other users on the same computer.

Updated: 09/03/2019 by

To make updates to a file or change its name, the file cannot be read-only. To modify a read-only file, follow the suggestions below to disable that feature and allow it to be edited.

Close all other programs

When a program opens a file, it may lock the file or set the file as read-only. Verify that more than one program is not using the same file by closing all other open programs and windows and then saving the file again.

Remove the read-only attribute

Some read-only files can be changed to allow for edits by removing the read-only attribute in the file properties.

1. Right-click the file and select Properties.
2. Uncheck the box for Read-only and click OK.

1. If the Read-only attribute is removed, the file should now be editable.

• How to view and change the file attributes in Windows.

Save a new copy of the file

Sometimes a file is set as read-only due to a hidden setting and not because of a read-only attribute. You can save a new copy of the file to remove the read-only setting on the file.

1. Open the read-only file.
2. Use the Save or Save As option in the software program used to view the file to save a new copy of the file. Make sure to save the new copy of the file as a different file name than the original.
3. Close the read-only file, then open the new copy of the file and try modifying and saving the contents of the file.

Corrupt file

If the above suggestions do not work, the file you're trying to edit may be corrupted, preventing the option to modify it. Try rebooting the computer and re-opening the file to make sure another program has not locked the file. If the file still doesn't open, the file would need to be restored from a backup, re-downloaded, or re-created by the original writer to fix this issue.