MacOS – Downloads folder shows Access Denied icon

filesystemfindermacospermissionSecurity

Starting this morning Chrome, Safari et all started showing my ~/Downloads with an access denied icon. Finder does not show this icon. I suspect this is something Code42 CrashPlan did overnight (it's a work issued MBP with some pre-installed apps). Now, the question is, how do I make my downloads again available?

  • adding read/write myself and everyone via chmod +ai
  • adding read/write myself and everyone via Finder -> file -> Get Info

ls -el shows that ~/Downloads is missing some attributes compared to other folders like ~/Documents:

drwx---rwx+  6 xx  yy   204 Jan 11 19:15 Documents
 0: XX-AE59E7573812 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwx---rwx+ 25 xx  yy   850 Jan 27 08:35 Downloads
 0: user:xx inherited allow list,add_file,delete
 1: group:everyone inherited allow list,add_file,delete
 2: group:owner inherited allow list,add_file,delete
drwx---rwx@ 51 xx  yy  1734 Jan 24 16:41 Library
 0: XX-AE59E7573812 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity

The existing ACLs on ~/Downloads are the one I added myself. Still, the browsers show it as Access Denied. Attempt to save a download fails silently (no error, but no file either).

enter image description here

OS X El Capitan 10.11.6

Best Answer

Make sure this is your Downloads folder. Click the little upside-down carat next to the "Save As" text field to see an expanded window, press Command-Shift-H to go to your Home folder and then see if the Downloads folder there is still inaccessible.