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There are two administrator accounts on my Mac. Both are for my own use and both are password protected. When I try to open the Documents folder of the second account from the first one, it is not possible. I can change the permissions of this folder though, and then I will get access there. But what I want is being asked to provide a password of the second account each time I try to open this folder or make any changes there instead. Is it possible somehow?

jsx97
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    Isn't that what switching or logging into the second user account is for? – red_menace Feb 24 '24 at 20:07
  • Well, I live with a girlfriend and I don't want her to have access to some of my folders. But simply storing these folders in the second account will be inconvenient for me. Something like "I want to store the folder Seduction inside the folder Psychology, which in near the folder Gym. And my idea is to move the "secret" folders into the Documents folder of the second account and then to make aliases to them in the respective folders in my main account. So that if she will click alias, she will be prompted to enter the password (the password for the second account, I mean). That's it. – jsx97 Feb 24 '24 at 23:14
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    Sounds like everyone has administrative access - don't do that. Standard user accounts are designed to restrict access between users, while admin accounts can access anything. – red_menace Feb 25 '24 at 00:04
  • Does your girlfriend has her own account, and is this a standard or an admin account? – nohillside Feb 25 '24 at 06:08
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    Both users can access files in /Users/Shared, so perhaps put the files you want to make available to both users there -- with an alias in your own account. – benwiggy Feb 25 '24 at 08:31
  • @nohillside No, she doesn't use it all. – jsx97 Feb 25 '24 at 08:43
  • @red_menace Thanks, this seems to be a really interesting point. But wouldn't that be less convenient in some cases? What if, at some point, I would like to make some tweaks on my Mac that require administrator-level access? – jsx97 Feb 25 '24 at 08:47
  • On GUI level you will be prompted for an admin account when your action requires admin rights. – nohillside Feb 25 '24 at 08:50
  • An encrypted/password protected DMG could also be used as alternative. – Redarm Feb 25 '24 at 10:02
  • @Redarm The problem with DMG is that I wasn't able to figure out how to make it automatically grow as I add more files there. I asked this on MPU Talk: https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/36155, but I haven't really found answers there that solve this issue. The solution that might work is to use DropDMG, but it doesn't seem to provide a really nice workflow. And I also prefer to use as few third-party apps as possible. – jsx97 Feb 25 '24 at 22:36
  • @jsx97 I had no issues: I specified half my hard drive's free space (100 GB) as overall size limit for my encrypted sparsebundle. Finder showed it as ca. 36 MB. I dropped a 130 MB movie file onto its mount and Finder now shows it as 170 MB. – Redarm Feb 26 '24 at 09:01
  • @Redarm Yes, but you still have only 100 GB and what if you will need more? – jsx97 Feb 26 '24 at 09:13
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    @jsx97 You will always be limited by your hard drive's space in any case. The point is that this is only a ceiling (you could specify all your hard drive's space) and the size starts off small and then grows. – Redarm Feb 26 '24 at 09:15

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It looks as if you try to create data access rules on top of what the OS provides out of the box. This is a lot of hassle even in the best cases.

Instead

  • create a standard user account for your girlfriend
  • put the documents you both need access to into /Users/Shared
  • Change the password of your admin account (and don’t tell her the new one)

Alternatively, if she doesn’t want her own account or password-sharing is something you want to do in your relationship: just put the “secret” documents on a USB stick (or into an encrypted DMG). You need to remember to remove it after use, though.

Redarm
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nohillside
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