Require Password Empty Trash ??

vjmacaddict

Registered
How can I require a password before emptying the Trash? My roommate had one of my important documents in the Trash!! Good thing he didn't empty the Trash, like he has a quick habit of doing!!!
 
Howabout making him his own limited user account, and storing your important documents in your home folder so he can't muck with them?

After all, that's exactly how multiple users are supposed to function in OS X/UNIX. It's intuitive, and trying to use it differently can be frustrating.
 
I'd rather leave everything available for my roommate, as he is a PC user only, but since we have only Macintosh computers in our home, and lots of them (!!!), he is having a frustratingly difficult time learning to use our Macs.

I also don't want to limit my boys. They only use my iBook when I'm around, but my roommate has strange hours ... I already tried creating a separate for my boys, and our roommate used their account too, but complained about not having full access like I do.

I don't mind having to enter a password to to empty the Trash. I don't empty the Trash that often anyway, so it wouldn't be any trouble.

I could just make certain top-level folders invisible with one of the several applications I have for that purpose, and then just make copies of certain documents that my roommate is interested in, but that will be involve more work and time ....

ElDiabloConCaca said:
Howabout making him his own limited user account, and storing your important documents in your home folder so he can't muck with them?

After all, that's exactly how multiple users are supposed to function in OS X/UNIX. It's intuitive, and trying to use it differently can be frustrating.
 
I am not certain, but password protecting the trash is probably not possible - and there are many other ways for inexperienced users to really screw up your mac!

Not to be mean or unsympathetic - but if your roommate is a mac newbie, he has no business with "full access like you have".
He does not need the extra freedom at this point, and will more
than likely screw something up even worse if given that level of access.

Just set him up with a regular (non-admin) users account with a password so that he has to log in to use the mac.

*If you have your boys log out when they are not using the computer,your roommate should not be able to log in to their
account.
 
You can also set the computer to automatically log out after a definted amount of time, if you have users who are in the habit of leaving themselves logged in when they're done.

UNIX/Mac OS X was specifically designed to have one user account per user, and trying to use it counter-intuitively (one user account for many users) is going to be frustrating, to say the least. I would highly recommend separate user accounts for each user -- that way, your documents are safe from prying eyes... documents that need to be used by all users can be placed somewhere else, like in the "Shared" folder. If hard drive space is a concern, new user accounts take up a negligible amount of space.
 
I finally created a separate user account for my roommate.

Problem: From my roommates account, he can access my Public Folder and Drop Box. From my account, I cannot access his Drop Box from his Public Folder!

How can this be? I have looked carefully through the various settings, but cannot figure out what is wrong. Even when I turned off my roommate's administrator's privileges, he can still access my Drop Box!! Even with Limitations set to "Some Limits," he can still access my Drop Box!!

When I try to access his Drop Box, a message pops up saying, "The folder "Drop Box" could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges. Why do I not have sufficient access privileges? The iBook is MY computer!! How do I fix this problem, so my roommate cannot have access to my Drop Box. I really don't need access to his Drop Box, however.

ElDiabloConCaca said:
You can also set the computer to automatically log out after a definted amount of time, if you have users who are in the habit of leaving themselves logged in when they're done.

UNIX/Mac OS X was specifically designed to have one user account per user, and trying to use it counter-intuitively (one user account for many users) is going to be frustrating, to say the least. I would highly recommend separate user accounts for each user -- that way, your documents are safe from prying eyes... documents that need to be used by all users can be placed somewhere else, like in the "Shared" folder. If hard drive space is a concern, new user accounts take up a negligible amount of space.
 
You should not be able to see the contents of another users drop box - you should, however, be able to copy (option-drag) files and folders to it.

If he can see the contents of your drop box, the permissions
may be set wrong.

Open a finder window in column veiw, click on /users/your_username/public/, highlight the drop box,
and press the command-i key sequence.

What do the permissions show as? They should be:

Owner: Read and Write
Group: Write Only(Drop Box)
Other: Write Only(Drop Box)
 
Thanks for the tip!! I had tried that before, but I didn't highlight the Drop Box icon! I feel stupid to miss something that simple!

I think I'm still used to the older Systems -- 9.1/8.6 and 7.1. I don't remember needing to highlight the icon .....

g/re/p said:
You should not be able to see the contents of another users drop box - you should, however, be able to copy (option-drag) files and folders to it.

If he can see the contents of your drop box, the permissions
may be set wrong.

Open a finder window in column veiw, click on /users/your_username/public/, highlight the drop box,
and press the command-i key sequence.

What do the permissions show as? They should be:

Owner: Read and Write
Group: Write Only(Drop Box)
Other: Write Only(Drop Box)
 
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