How do I unlock and delete a jpeg file? The lock icon is grayed out. The "Locked" box is checked and grayed out. The "Sharing & Permissions" box states "You can only read". I have admin privileges on my laptop. I have searched elsewhere on the internet but nothing is helping. Thank you for your expertise.
MacBook Pro 16″
Where is this file located?
Is this file perhaps being synced to the cloud with iCloud, DropBox, One Drive, Google Drive, or some other service?
Is File Sharing enabled in the System Settings?
How/where did you acquire this file?
Have you tried rebooting the computer? Or tried booting into Safe Mode to see if it makes a difference?
Have you tried copying the file to another location within your home user folder or even to an external drive to see if you can make changes?
Hi, mach751, I’m going to ask you a dumb question right off the bat. Are you running/do you have Catalina ( macOS 10.15) on your MacBookPro 16”? You can find that out by going to “About This Mac”. If you are, the default setting for it is “read only”( at least for your internal hard drive/ssd). To change that, click on your hard drive/ssd icon on your Desktop once, so it’s highlighted, then press Apple+I keys on your keyboard ( do a ‘get info’ on it) and you should see a long window, sharing and permissions should be about halfway down… to make any changes, click the lock at the very bottom of the window, and type in your login/admin password when asked to, the lock should unlock, go up to the sharing and permissions part of the window, there should be 2 columns: user on one side, permissions on the other side, you should now be able to change it from “read only” to “read and write” for all users. When you are done, click the lock at the bottom of the window, that should be it… close the window and try to open the jpeg file…
John B
Hi John B.
Thanks for replying. I am running macOS Ventura 13.4.
I received the response "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission." after unlocking the lock and trying to change the "read only" setting on "Everyone". I tried adding my name "Dave" using the "+" sign. That did not work and neither did trying to add myself as "administrator".
How frustrating!
Thank you for your questions but I can't answer half of them so I'm just going to let the pictures live on my computer. Trying to delete them has gotten way too complicated, as evidenced by how much information is needed to troubleshoot the problem.
Troubleshooting can indeed be a very slow process especially through online forums.
You can have Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider examine the situation to see if they can assist you. We don't know enough about the details to know if this could be just be isolated to these jpg files or if it could have wider consequences...perhaps down the road. Someone who can actually see the issue and interact with the system will have a much easier time figuring out the problem because they may notice some subtle clue.
Make sure to have a good backup just in case. You should always have frequent & reguar backups anyway.
I cannot unlock a jpeg file on my MBP
