🔎 Quick Tips: How to give Full Disk Access to Lightroom Classic on macOS

[Sameer K]

How to provide Full Disk Access on macOS

Since macOS 10.14 (Mojave), Apple introduced a new privacy structure to help ensure that all applications obtain user consent before accessing documents, downloads, desktop, iCloud Drive, and network volumes. This has been reinforced in newer versions of macOS. This change prevents unauthorized access to user files and folders.

When Full Disk access & Accessibility permissions are needed, users may be asked to or be required to change the setting in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy for Lightroom Classic manually.   

While for the File & Folders access, the user is prompted to allow or deny when needed. 

Why provide full disk access to Lightroom Classic?

Insufficient or broken permissions may restrict Lightroom Classic from functioning correctly and break your workflows. All tasks that require access to the computer's storage — importing/exporting images, cross-app workflows, reading/writing metadata,  and more, behave unexpectedly. It may also lead to missing images, performance issues, unexpected sync issues, and random app crash on launch or while working on a file. 

Watch this video for the steps:

Quick steps to enable full disk access and grant permissions to Lightroom Classic

 Follow these steps to prevent the permissions issues from occurring: 

❶  Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Click the Lock icon > Authorize via password > Unlock the lock to allow changes to system settings. 

❷  Add Lightroom Classic by clicking on the (+) button & navigate to the Applications folder on macOS.

❸  Go to Full Disk Access and add Lightroom Classic by clicking on the (+) button & navigate to the Applications folder on macOS.
Note: Adding Lightroom Classic under Full Disk Access overrides Files and Folders settings. 

❹  Click the Lock icon to save the changes. Restart your computer to see the applied changes. 

Stay tuned for more tips to come.

Related links:

Lightroom Classic system requirements 

Quick Tips: Optimize LrC preferences for better performance 

Basic troubleshooting steps to fix issues in Lightroom Classic 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Lightroom Catalogs may not be accessed on a non-local drive. 

See: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html 

[Conrad_C]

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@Rikk Flohr: Photography wrote:

Lightroom Catalogs may not be accessed on a non-local drive. 

See: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html 

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That is probably not be the right answer. The OWC Thunderbay is a direct-attached storage (DAS) multi-bay storage enclosure, clearly local, not a NAS. It’s called “Thunderbay” because the connection port is Thunderbolt, which is of course a local protocol. The Thunderbay series, and other OWC local storage solutions, are quite popular with creative professionals. It has no network connectivity of any kind.

It does seem like further investigation into their problem is reasonable. I have stored Lightroom Classic images on a similar OWC multi-bay enclosure that connects via USB-C and have not seen this problem.

[JW Brown]

This drive connects directly to my laptop and is not a network drive. Further, I have used it for several years with success with Lightroom. I think Lightroom uses MySQL Lite as its database and thus, cannot work as a network drive.

[crthomas8888]

Hi Jim,

I'm having this same issue and can't find a solution.  Did you ever get a fix that worked?

[JohanElzenga]

Select the OCW drive and press Cmd-i to get the info dialog for that drive. Look all the way at the bottom. Is 'Ignore ownership for this volume' checked? If not, check it.

[crthomas8888]

Hi Johan, apprecite your help, but I dont have an ignore ownership option - 

[JohanElzenga]

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@crthomas8888 wrote:

Hi Johan, apprecite your help, but I dont have an ignore ownership option - 

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Right! Your disk is used as a Time Machine backup disk, that is the problem (and that is also why it is missing the option I mentioned). Time Machine protects the disk against access by other apps, to make sure these apps do not mess with the backups. My advice: use a Time Machine backup disk for backups only. Or partition it, so you can have a dedicated Time Machine partition.

[crthomas8888]

Success -

Here is what I did in case it can help anyone else:

1. I added another external drive to my Mac
2. Set it us as the Time Machine Drive
3. Ran a backup on it
4. Deteleted the backup on my Drobo
5. Rebooted
6. The Drobo then showed up in Finder as normal drive, not the Time Machine 
7. I was able to launch LR and I was up and running

Here is what didn't work (in case this is helpful)

- moving the catalog to my desktop, I could open the catalog but the catalog count access the phonts on my Drobo, due to the same read / write issues

- trying to change permissions (either within Finder, or the Disk Utility App, or under Security / Privacy

And here is what seems to be the root of this (only a guess)

I had no issues until I upgraded to Montery 12.3

It all worked (with my Drobo as my Time Machine, etc. when I was on 12.2, then 12.3 came and it couldnt read/write

Hope this can be helpful to others,

Chris

[JohanElzenga]

"It all worked (with my Drobo as my Time Machine, etc. when I was on 12.2, then 12.3 came and it couldnt read/write"

Then you have been lucky. Using a Time Machine backup disk for other purposes has caused problems for many people for a long time. Time Machine 'owns' its disk, and so it changes its permissions. If you select a normal disk and use 'Get Info', you will see an 'Ignore ownership of this volume' checkbox at the bottom of the dialog. Checking this box grants read/write permissions to all apps, regardless of their own permissions. If you look at a Time Machine disk, you will notice that this checkbox has disappeared. With MacOS 12.3.1 this has no doubt become even strickter, but it was never a good idea to use a Time Machine backup disk for anything but that backup.

[JW Brown]

That option does not exist. Though I should not have to do this, I did change permission to read/write for admin, me, staff and everyone. 

It made no difference; Lightroom still reports a permission problem.

Newly created Lightroom catalogs do open properly on the OWC drive. However, 6 T of older catalogs will not open. 

[JW Brown]

No. Adobe Tech Support refuses to talk to me.

[Thomas24429381pts1]

I don't know if this helps, but I have noticed that this issue happened for me as well with an OWC Thunderbay 4 DAS array; however, it happened after the most recent update.  But when I attempted to downgrade back to a previous version, it still did not work.  I ended up creating the library on another local drive (not C drive) and it managed to work and import just fine.

I guess for some reason, the library can't be on the array, but it can be on an internal RAID array (not one externally connected)?

[John R Ellis]

Since this thread started (early in the life of Mac OS 12.3), we've discovered that something changed in Mac OS 12.3.1 (or 12.3), and many people are finding they need to grant LR Full Disk Access. See:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-give-full-disk-access...

So I recommend trying that before coming to any other conclusions.

[JW Brown]

Thank you John Rellis. Your solution worked for me. Many thanks to all those who commented.

Jim Brown

[GoldingD]

Outside of LrC. on your MAC. When you  choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, then click Privacy, Select Files and Folders. For Lightroom Classic, what do you see?

[crthomas8888]

yes - 

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-give-full-disk-access...

[RickB3]

The dreaded Lightroom Classic "preview unavailable for this file" has struck me now. On Feb 12, my previews upon import showed as normal; on Feb. 16, I began getting the error. Same camera, same SD card, same computer, same everything except LRC. I can only guess that the upgrade to LRC 11.2 broke something. Canon EOS-R, iMac 2020 27" Big Sur 11.6.2. Any fix for this?

[Todd Shaner]

There was a similar issue reported at the below post. Using an external memory card reader resolved the issue. Suspected that the iMac built-in memory card reader is defective or an OSX update corrupted the device firmware. Try using a different memory card reader.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lrc-does-not-recognize-any-files-canon-...

[RickB3]

Thanks for the reply, Todd, but no luck. LRC can read the files and import them fine, it just doesn't show the previews, so I can't see what I'm importing. And as I say, it started after the upgrade to 11.2.

[Todd Shaner]

Did you try a different memory card reader? That's the only way you can rule out the built-in card reader as the cause.

[RickB3]

Yes, I tried two differernt ones.

[Todd Shaner]

Try resetting your LrC Preferences file as outlined at the below article. Place a copy of the current Preferences file on your desktop so it can be easily restored if of no help.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/

[RickB3]

Found it!! Needed to re-authorize "Full Disk Access" for LRC. 

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/preview-unavailable-for-this-file.44222/post-129287...

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-give-full-disk-access...