I can't cd into a folder that I created a long time ago, and I am the su

Question

I can't cd into a folder that I created, I believe I might have fiddled with chmod I while ago.

Strange if I type: su and my password it says wrong password, although I am the owner of the laptop and have the admin account (there is only 1 account which is mine).

Ideas?

Answer 1

Right-click that folder, select Get Info, if necessary click the lock to the lower right, and add your user account to the list by clicking the + button add the bottom. Make sure your privilege is Read & Write, select your user name, click the cogwheel and select Make username (me) the owner.

If you took away your execute privilege, that might not work though.

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Alternatively, open Terminal and type

sudo chown your_user_shortname /path/to/folder
sudo chmod u+rwx /path/to/folder

You can drag&drop the folder onto the Terminal window to keep from having to type the path.

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su requires you to type the target user's password (root by default). Try it by typing:

su $( whoami )

It works after entering your password. root doesn't have a password on OS X to prevent root logins though.

If you're an Administrator (i.e. member of the wheel group which is granted sudo privileges in /etc/sudoers), you need to sudo first. Do the following:

sudo su

This allows you to type your account's password and then execute su after you get additional privileges from sudo.