Command to unlock "Locked" files on OS X

Question

I copied a lot of read-only files from a Windows system to my Mac. When viewing the Info for each file using "Get Info", I can see they are Locked. I'm writing a bash script to copy over some files and I'm getting an error that says "Operation not permitted" So, first I need to unlock the files. Since I'll be pulling files from the Windows system often, I want my script to unlock these files.

What is the terminal command to unlock "Locked" files on OSX?

score 193 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 24 '13 at 07:36

193

To unlock files you can use:

chflags -R nouchg /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY/WITH/LOCKED/FILES/

chflags = change flags on files/folders such as "locked"
-R = recursive or for everything and follow directories within the specified directory
nouchg = means the file can be changed
/PATH/ = of course is the path to the files you want to change. Something like: ~/Sites/mysite/directory/with/locked/files/ works as well.

edited Jul 24 '13 at 07:36

slhck

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answered Sep 14 '09 at 02:26

Chealion

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Looks like I found the solution just as you were responding. I also learned that the -R is for recursive. So, to unlock all files in the current directory use
chflags nochg *
and to change just one file
chflags nouchg onefile.txt See: http://www.mehtanirav.com/2009/04/16/recursively-unlock-files-on-mac-os-x – Michael Prescott Sep 14 '09 at 02:37
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There's another relevant flag `schg` which is the system immutable flag (see https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/chflags.1.html) The command to clear it is similar: `sudo chflags noschg PATH/TO/LOCKED/FILE` – Andy Madge Jan 12 '15 at 20:22
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Use ```/bin/ls -lO /path/to/file``` to view the macOS ```flags``` on files. Notice the full path to the macOS '```ls```' command. This is needed if you have GNU Coreutils installed. – Tony Barganski Nov 07 '18 at 05:57
@AndyMadge - I needed to use that flag, from following directions on this page: https://www.askdavetaylor.com/how-to-delete-locked-file-on-mac-macos/. But the link you provided is dead. Do you have an updated link? – Adam_G Mar 16 '21 at 19:54
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@Adam_G seems like Apple have moved the web page, but you can view the man page directly in MacOS terminal with the `man chflags` command – Andy Madge Mar 17 '21 at 12:34
this worked for me. Thanks – Rakshitha Muranga Rodrigo Feb 20 '22 at 10:21

score 25 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 03 '14 at 18:31

25

This is helpful if you want to search an entire directory and unlock all files.

In the terminal cd to the directory

This command finds and will print a list of them.

$ find . -flags uchg

This command unlocks them.

$ find . -flags uchg -exec chflags nouchg {} \;

You can use the first command to double check that all the files are unlocked after running the second command, voilà !

edited Jun 03 '14 at 18:31

Sufian

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answered Sep 20 '13 at 03:23

Mamie McCall

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While this works, it can be extremely slow for large numbers of files because it starts a new process for each file. – Richard Waite Aug 23 '14 at 23:52
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I find I have to use `+` : `find . -flags +uchg` even to find files that only seem to have the one flag, uchg, set. – Chris F Carroll Nov 28 '19 at 13:05

score 18 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 24 '13 at 06:58

18

You can also use SetFile -a l, even though it does the same thing as chflags nouchg:

SetFile -a l file.ext

-a l unsets the bit for the locked attribute. You can install SetFile by downloading the Command Line Tools package from Xcode's preferences or from developer.apple.com/downloads.

edited Jul 24 '13 at 06:58

Lri

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answered Sep 14 '09 at 02:30

John T

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This is the method that worked for me on macOS Sierra with a few files copied from a Windows machine. I used : SetFile -a l ~/Documents/Arduino/Samples/* – callisto May 18 '17 at 06:59
As fyi, `/usr/bin/SetFile` (`setfile`) was deprecated with Xcode 6 along as were other tools supporting Carbon development; although `SetFile` still appears to install as part of Xcode 12 additional command line tools. See `man SetFile` – marc-medley May 29 '21 at 03:38

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered May 15 '19 at 08:32

There are actually two lock flags that can be set on a file: uchg and schg. A file that has the uchg flag set is immutable by normal users but it is mutable by the system. A file that has the schg flag set is immutable by anyone. Both flags can be set at the same time.

To see which flags are set on a file, use

ls -lO FILE

That is a capital letter o, not zero.

To definitely unlock a file, you would have to execute

chflags nouchg,noschg FILE

as if both flags were set and you remove only one of them, it will still be locked.

Command to unlock "Locked" files on OS X

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