Tuesday, December 23, 2025

macos – Can’t erase file, even though I am the owner

This is on MacOS Sequoia.

Several years ago, I created in the course of a backup process run by rsync, a file on an external hard disk:

ls -l /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave\ Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html

shows:

-r-xr-xr-x  1 ronaldfischer  staff  6538 Jan 14  2022 /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html

I am the owner, and also in the right group: The command id shows

uid=501(ronaldfischer) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),12(everyone),61(localaccounts),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),81(_appserveradm),98(_lpadmin),701(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),702(com.apple.sharepoint.group.2),33(_appstore),100(_lpoperator),204(_developer),250(_analyticsusers),395(com.apple.access_ftp),398(com.apple.access_screensharing),399(com.apple.access_ssh),400(com.apple.access_remote_ae),703(com.apple.sharepoint.group.3)

But when I try to remove the file with

rm -f /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave\ Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html 

I get the error message:

rm: /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html: Permission denied

Is there some mysterious Apple protection mechanism in the way?

Note: The majority of the files on that disk can be deleted. There is just a couple of them which refuse deletion.

UPDATE

Based on the comment by bmike, I include here more information of that file:

> ls -led /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave\ Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html
-r-xr-xr-x  1 ronaldfischer  staff  6538 Jan 14  2022 /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html
> ls -lO /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave\ Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html
-r-xr-xr-x  1 ronaldfischer  staff  - 6538 Jan 14  2022 /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html

I also did a

xattr /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave\ Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/7F5BDCD7-2D3E-4CC1-9628-BDC6CB369986.html

but the output was empty.

In case it matters: The file system on the volume is shown as “Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)”.

UPDATE

Adding information about the containing folder:

> ls -lOd /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave\ Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/                                       
dr-x------  3 ronaldfischer  staff  - 170 Jan 14  2022 /Volumes/V200GB_A/imac_save/Library/Containers/com.coteditor.CotEditor/Data/Library/Autosave Information/0F338E6B-512C-4998-A941-41B770B4351D.genstore.noindex/

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