OSX - Exploring outside of User

[jimoblak]

Is there a way to visually explore outside of your home directory in OSX? When I go to the hard drive icon on the desktop, I can only see the files for me - not the other users I have set up. I have administrator privileges.

I can use the shell to go anywhere but it would be nice to explore the same folders down to the hard drive root using the GUI.

 

[wags22]

I'm assuming that you want to be able to explore other User home directories. This can be accomplished, but it involves using the command line to do it.

OS X User folder is set up that each user only has access to their own home directory. This can be changed by changing the permissions on the directory to allow others to access the directory.

There are a couple of ways you can do this. One is to change the permissions to grant anyone the ability to access the directory. This can be done at the command line by entering the following command:

sudo chmod 777 directory name

You need to be logged in as an admin user to make this change and use the sudo command to temporarily assume Super User status to be able to make the change.
777 sets the permissions to everyone is able to read, write, and execute files in the directory. If you want to change it just to be able to view the contents then you would use:
775 - owner and group have full access, others have read only access.

The other way that you can do this is to make your account part of the group of the accounts you want to access. Then set the permissions such that the group has read, write, and execute permissions.

Hope this helps.

Jonathan