You do not have permission to save files to this location

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You do not have permission to save files to this location

Recently on my iMac (OS Ventura 13.4.1) I found that when trying to save Excel or Word files to particular locations, I get either "You do not have permission to save files to this location" (Excel) or "Word cannot save or create this file" (Word).

The folders are located on an external drive that's been connected and in use for several years. In Finder I can see that I successfully saved newly created Word and Excel files via both apps to this same location as recently as 8-9 months ago. I also note that files from this location now only open as Read Only and I can't duplicate/rename them to this same location.

Additionally I note that I can't delete files from this location. In Get Info for this drive, firstly I note the drive name and extension field is greyed out. Format shows as "Windows NT File System (NTFS)", which made me wonder if this was the culprit but then, as noted above, I've definitely successfully save to this location in the recent past. Additionally, under Sharing & Permissions it says "You can only read". However the table immediately below shows my name followed by "(Me)" in the Name column, and "Read & Write" in the Privilege column. I don't understand why it knows that it's me logged in (and this is my personal Mac, so there are no other users anyway), but then tells me I have different permissions to those shown immediately below on the same screen.

Incidentally, on a second external drive (Format: ExFAT") I can do everything I've mentioned above, however in Get Info, under Sharing & Permissions, this one says "You have custom access". It also says the drive was created on 1 January 1970 and modified on 1 January 1980 which I guess is a whole other thing that I probably don't wanna get into here right now!

So disregarding my last observation above, does anyone have any hints or tips as to what's going on here? Despite owning this Mac since 2017, the internal machinations of MacOS are still mostly a mystery to me so I have no explanation in my own mind for what might be happening.

Any help with be hugely appreciated.

Cheers,

Matt

iMac 27″ 5K

Posted on Aug 11, 2023 6:10 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MrHoffman

Community+ 2024

Level 10

126,073 points

Aug 26, 2023 8:32 AM in response to Tinascousin

If you have the Paragon NTFS reader installed and it’s not working, check for updates to Paragon, and then check with Paragon support.

Or off-load the data, reformat to HFS+ or APFS, and re-load; switch the volume format to one with native support.

If you’re not swapping with Microsoft systems, I’d reformat to native.

If you are swapping with Microsoft systems and the Windows systems are on the same local network, I’d reformat and set up a file share.

If you are swapping hard disks with Windows remotely, update Paragon and check with Paragon support.

You should not need a driver from the Seagate website. macOS has native support, unless Seagate fid something unusual and non-standard.

NTSC national television system committee (or probably more commonly as never the same color) is the US analog broadcast TV scheme. NTFS is the Windows NT File System is the current Microsoft storage volume format, when not using one of the older FAT file allocation table variants.

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Answer 2

Tinascousin Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 26, 2023 2:11 AM in response to MrHoffman

Thanks MrHoffman. Did you mean this Paragon (see screenshot)? To the best of my recollection, it's always been on my iMac and loads every time I boot up. Shows at the top of the screen around the time the drive mount notification shows.

So if it can read NTSC, and NTSC is the format of this drive, and I used to be able to read and write to and from but now can't as of some time somewhat recently, is there something else I need to be doing re Paragon?

Any idea what might be going on?

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Answer 3

KiltedTim

Level 10

203,704 points

Aug 11, 2023 6:20 PM in response to Tinascousin

macOS can NOT natively write to NTFS formatted volumes.

I'm betting you had 3rd party NTFS drivers installed previously that are no longer compatible with the version of macOS you're running.

As for the exFAT volume, exFAT does not support extended file permissions. Don't worry about that.

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Answer 4

Aug 11, 2023 6:25 PM in response to Tinascousin

Temporarily empty the external NTFS storage device somewhere else, erase and reformat it to HFS+ Apple Extended Journaled or APFS, repopulate it, and continue on with life.

Or get Paragon or such, which can read and write NTFS.

If you’re swapping the NTFS drive around locally, consider setting up and using a file share from Windows or Mac.

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Answer 5

Aug 26, 2023 5:32 PM in response to Tinascousin

Tinascousin wrote:

In Get Info for this drive, firstly I note the drive name and extension field is greyed out. Format shows as "Windows NT File System (NTFS)", which made me wonder if this was the culprit but then, as noted above, I've definitely successfully save to this location in the recent past.

If this is a NTFS-formatted volume on a directly-attached drive, there is no way you can write to it unless you have a third-party NTFS driver installed and working. Out of the box, macOS can read (but not write) NTFS volumes.

You say that you could write to it in the recent past. This suggests that you had a working driver installed – but that something has happened to your driver installation.

Incidentally, on a second external drive (Format: ExFAT") I can do everything I've mentioned above

Out of the box, macOS can read and write to FAT32 and exFAT volumes.

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Answer 6

Tinascousin Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 26, 2023 2:53 AM in response to MrHoffman

Actually it's all good now. All I had to do was update the driver from the Seagate website. All working again for write *and* read again, as previously.

Thanks for your help!

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Answer 7

Tinascousin Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 26, 2023 4:12 PM in response to MrHoffman

Thanks MrHoffman. My bad re NTSC — I’d literally just her watching a YouTube video about global tv broadcast systems about an hour before I wrote that!

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You do not have permission to save files to this location

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