On 11/08/2010, at 6:11 AM, Steven Knowles wrote:
> > I'm a tad confused. > > I park all manner of folders on Macintosh HD, ie. folders alongside the > standard Applications folder, Systems folder, and so on. It's a filing system > I've always used, never had need to do anything different. > > If I create a new Account on my Mac, for a 3rd party user, I've always > thought that the new user would not have access to any of those folders on > "my" Macintosh HD, other than folders which they must have access to, eg. > Applications. But not folders which I've created and added files to whilst > logged in as myself. > > I've just discovered this doesn't seem to be the case. Are all files and > folders directly within the Macintosh HD folder public property as far as > local users go? Or do I have a Mac behaving badly? If my Mac is supposed to > behave this way, then I guess it's a little embarrassing realising this after > 16 years of using Macs. Better now than never I suppose. Click one one of these folders and have a look at the permissions rules in the Get Info window. You'll find that while generally ownership of the folders will be assigned to "System" with read and write permissions, everyone else will have at least read permissions, which means everyone else has access to the folders: they just can't change their contents. Bear in mind that all this changed with the introduction of Mac OS X. Prior to that, Mac OS didn't really care where anything was, since it was a single-user system, ie you could not add different user accounts. In Mac OS X, everything that you want to belong to you must be kept inside your own account folder, ie, home. > > I'm guessing that I'm going to get told that if I want a multi user machine, > I should be filing my own "not for everybody" stuff somewhere within my Home > folder, but thought I'd best check with the experts before I start > reorganising my whole filing cabinet. All you need to do is to move all your "private" stuff into your Documents folder. No one can get to them then. Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer Perth, Western Australia Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 064 948 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to. -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
