How do you rename, or change permissions on many files?

**Note** there are SUDO commands here that can potentially wreck up your system. If you have questions about this stuff, post in the forum or ask someone verbally to help. The sudo command can really cause problems if you're not entirely sure what you're doing.
I had an issue a while ago where I had to rename about 400 pictures all in the same folder. They were all named by a students PEN #. I needed an incremental number starting at 001.jpg. I was hoping to figure out a script either in apple script or in terminal that would do the job. I called a friend of mine at another school with my problem (he's a windows guy) and he had this great idea.
First of all, using terminal list all the files.
The command is simply "ls" without the quotes.
Select all the files that the ls command outputs and copy it. (command c)
Next, open up excel or numbers or any spreadsheet program, select cell B1 and paste the list of files in question.
When I type SPACE below, I mean hit the space bar.
Now comes the fun part.
In cell A1 type mv SPACE
In Cell C1 type SPACE
In Cell D1 type 001
In Cell E1 type .jpg
In Cell F1 type the following.
Fill down each of the columns to the bottom of the list of file names.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
mv
pennumber1.jpg
001
.jpg
=CONCATENATE(A1..E1)
mv
pennumber2.jpg
002
.jpg
=CONCATENATE(A2..E2)
mv
pennumber3.jpg
003
.jpg
=CONCATENATE(A3..E3)
mv
pennumber4.jpg
004
.jpg
=CONCATENATE(A4..E4)
mv
pennumber5.jpg
005
.jpg
=CONCATENATE(A5..E5)
Now Select all of column F and copy it.
Open up terminal and navigate to the folder that's containing all your files to be renamed.
Hit paste and press enter.
This will paste in the contents of each cell in the f column followed by an enter.
Voila!
Now, if you wanted to change ownership of a set of folders, you could use the same process.
I'm assuming that the folder's that your changing are home folders here. In other words, the home folder name should be the same as the shortname of your user.
It might look something like this:
Navigate to the folder that conains your user folders. **CAUTION ----SUDO AHEAD*** This command can BREAK YOUR COMPUTER if you're not careful.
Type: sudo -s
type your password.
Copy the list of Folders from terminal.
Paste them into some column way on the right in excel or numbers or whatever. Maybe column F or something.
Now, in A1 type chmod SPACE        and fill it down all the way.
In B1 type -R SPACE         and fill it down all the way
In C1 type =F1 SPACE       and fill it down all the way
In D1 type =F1       and fill it down all the way
In E1 type =CONCATENATE(A1..D1)        and fill it down all the way
The spreadsheet might look like this:
A
B
C
D
E
F
chmod
-R
=F1
=F1
=CONCATENATE(A1..D1)
thor
chmod
-R
=F2
=F2
=CONCATENATE(A2..D2)
incrediblehulk
Again, just copy and paste column E into terminal and poof! It should work!
*Note, it might be a good idea to run a trial on a folder that's not important to you before you start. These commands you're running can wreck things up pretty good. So ensure things are set up properly before hand!
HTH
-Graham

In the Finder's Get Info window, under permissions, you can click the little gear icon and set the "Apply to encoded items" flag. Then when you change permissions, it will apply to everything underneath the selected folder.

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How do I change permissions on many files at once?

Hello!
I recently had a large hard drive crash, and, long story short, I got all my data back but now have a different user account on a new hard drive. The permissions on all the files on the computer are fine.
However, I am a recently graduated film student and use an external drive to edit video. When I tried to open up Final Cut Pro and work on a project, I was told that the program couldn't work because I didn't have "write" access to my scratch drives. I changed the permissions on the relevant folders and can now open the application fine, but can't actually edit because ALL the medi files don't give me full read/write access.
I can change them all one at a time, which requires I enter my password for each one, but this would take a few days of work to complete.
My question is: how can I add my user account with read/write permission to many files at once? I've heard this can be done with Terminal, but I'm not sure how.
Please give me step-by-step instructions if you can! I have never used Terminal before! I am not a techie, but I want to be, and I learn quickly!
My computer specs:
15in Macbook Pro, early 2008.
System 10.5.8

In the Finder's Get Info window, under permissions, you can click the little gear icon and set the "Apply to encoded items" flag. Then when you change permissions, it will apply to everything underneath the selected folder.

Solved - How to take ownership and change permissions for blocked files and folders in Powershell

Hello,
I was trying to take ownership & fix permissions on Home Folder/My Documents structures, I ran into the common problem in PowerShell where Set-Acl & Get-Acl return access denied errors. The error occurs because the Administrators have been removed from
file permissions and do not have ownership of the files,folders/directories. (Assuming all other permissions like SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege have been enabled.
I was not able to find any information about someone successfully using native PS to resolve the issue. As I was able to solve the issues surrounding Get-Acl & Set-Acl, I wanted to share the result for those still looking for an answer.
Question: How do you use only Powershell take ownership and reset permissions for files or folders you do not have permissions or ownership of?
Problem:
Using the default function calls to the object fail for a folder that the administrative account does not have permissions or file ownership. You get the following error for Get-Acl:
PS C:\> Get-Acl -path F:\testpath\locked
Get-Acl : Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.
+ get-acl <<<< -path F:\testpath\locked
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-Acl], UnauthorizedAccessException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.UnauthorizedAccessException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetAclCommand
If you create a new ACL and attempt to apply it using Set-Acl, you get:
PS C:\> Set-Acl -path F:\testpath\locked -AclObject $DirAcl
Set-Acl : Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.
At line:1 char:8
+ Set-Acl <<<< -path "F:\testpath\locked" -AclObject $DirAcl
+ CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: (F:\testpath\locked:String) [Set-Acl], UnauthorizedAccessException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.UnauthorizedAccessException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SetAclCommand
Use of other functions like .GetAccessControl will result in a similar error: "Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation."
How do you replace owner on all subcontainers and objects in Powershell with resorting to external applications like takeown, icacls, Windows Explorer GUI, etc.?
Tony

Hello,
Last, here is the script I used to reset permissions on the "My Documents" tree structure that admins did not have access to:
Example: Powershell script to parse a directory of User-owned "My Document" redirection folders and reset permissions.
#Script to Reset MyDocuments Folder permissions
$domainName = ([ADSI]'').name
Import-Module "PSCX" -ErrorAction Stop
Set-Privilege (new-object Pscx.Interop.TokenPrivilege "SeRestorePrivilege", $true) #Necessary to set Owner Permissions
Set-Privilege (new-object Pscx.Interop.TokenPrivilege "SeBackupPrivilege", $true) #Necessary to bypass Traverse Checking
#Set-Privilege (new-object Pscx.Interop.TokenPrivilege "SeSecurityPrivilege", $true) #Optional if you want to manage auditing (SACL) on the objects
Set-Privilege (new-object Pscx.Interop.TokenPrivilege "SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege", $true) #Necessary to override FilePermissions & take Ownership
$Directorypath = "F:\Userpath" #locked user folders exist under here
$LockedDirs = Get-ChildItem $Directorypath -force #get all of the locked directories.
Foreach ($Locked in $LockedDirs) {
Write-Host "Resetting Permissions for "$Locked.Fullname
#######Take Ownership of the root directory
$blankdirAcl = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity
$blankdirAcl.SetOwner([System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]'BUILTIN\Administrators')
$Locked.SetAccessControl($blankdirAcl)
###################### Setup & apply correct folder permissions to the root user folder
#Using recommendation from Ned Pyle's Ask Directory Services blog:
#Automatic creation of user folders for home, roaming profile and redirected folders.
$inherit = [system.security.accesscontrol.InheritanceFlags]"ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit"
$propagation = [system.security.accesscontrol.PropagationFlags]"None"
$fullrights = [System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemRights]"FullControl"
$allowrights = [System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]"Allow"
$DirACL = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity
#Administrators: Full Control
$DirACL.AddAccessRule((new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("BUILTIN\Administrators",$fullrights, $inherit, $propagation, "Allow")))
#System: Full Control
$DirACL.AddAccessRule((new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM",$fullrights, $inherit, $propagation, "Allow")))
#Creator Owner: Full Control
$DirACL.AddAccessRule((new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("CREATOR OWNER",$fullrights, $inherit, $propagation, "Allow")))
#Useraccount: Full Control (ideally I would error check the existance of the user account in AD)
#$DirACL.AddAccessRule((new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("$domainName\$Locked.name",$fullrights, $inherit, $propagation, "Allow")))
$DirACL.AddAccessRule((new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("$domainName\$Locked",$fullrights, $inherit, $propagation, "Allow")))
#Remove Inheritance from the root user folder
$DirACL.SetAccessRuleProtection($True, $False) #SetAccessRuleProtection(block inheritance?, copy parent ACLs?)
#Set permissions on User Directory
Set-Acl -aclObject $DirACL -path $Locked.Fullname
Write-Host "commencer" -NoNewLine
##############Restore admin access & then restore file/folder inheritance on all subitems
#create a template ACL with inheritance re-enabled; this will be stamped on each subitem to re-establish the file structure with inherited ACLs only.
#$NewOwner = New-Object System.Security.Principal.NTAccount("$domainName","$Locked.name") #ideally I would error check this.
$NewOwner = New-Object System.Security.Principal.NTAccount("$domainName","$Locked") #ideally I would error check this.
$subFileACL = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSecurity
$subDirACL = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity
$subFileACL.SetOwner($NewOwner)
$subDirACL.SetOwner($NewOwner)
######## Enable inheritance ($False) and not copy of parent ACLs ($False)
$subFileACL.SetAccessRuleProtection($False, $False) #SetAccessRuleProtection(block inheritance?, copy parent ACLs?)
$subDirACL.SetAccessRuleProtection($False, $False) #SetAccessRuleProtection(block inheritance?, copy parent ACLs?)
#####loop through subitems
$subdirs = Get-ChildItem -path $Locked.Fullname -force -recurse #force is necessary to get hidden files/folders
foreach ($subitem in $subdirs) {
#take ownership to insure ability to change permissions
#Then set desired ACL
if ($subitem.Attributes -match "Directory") {
# New, blank Directory ACL with only Owner set
$blankdirAcl = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity
$blankdirAcl.SetOwner([System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]'BUILTIN\Administrators')
#Use SetAccessControl to reset Owner; Set-Acl will not work.
$subitem.SetAccessControl($blankdirAcl)
#At this point, Administrators have the ability to change the directory permissions
Set-Acl -aclObject $subDirACL -path $subitem.Fullname -ErrorAction Stop
} Else {
# New, blank File ACL with only Owner set
$blankfileAcl = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSecurity
$blankfileAcl.SetOwner([System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]'BUILTIN\Administrators')
#Use SetAccessControl to reset Owner; Set-Acl will not work.
$subitem.SetAccessControl($blankfileAcl)
#At this point, Administrators have the ability to change the file permissions
Set-Acl -aclObject $subFileACL -path $subitem.Fullname -ErrorAction Stop
Write-Host "." -NoNewline
Write-Host "fin."
Write-Host "Script Complete."
I hope you find this useful.
Thank you,
Tony
Final Thought: There are great non-PS tools like
Set-Acl and takeown which are external to PS & can also do the job wonderfully. It may be much simpler to call those tools than recreate the wheel in pure
code. Feel free to use whatever best suits your time, scope & cost.

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Anyway, million thanks for your tip and I really appreciate it! Have a Happy holidays!

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How do you rename, or change permissions on many files?

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