Fix 'You Don't Currently Have Permission to Access This Folder in Windows'

Updated on Jun 17, 2024 | by Rick

Quick Navigation:

What does it mean when it says "you don't have permission to access this folder"?
Fix #1. Regain Ownership of the Folder
Fix #2. Give Permissions to All Users
Fix #3. Cancel the "Read-only" Option for the Folder
Fix #4. Using Command Prompt to Fix It
Fix #5. Rescue Files Trapped in the Inaccessible Folder

This article gives you solutions for how to fix the problem of you don't currently have permission to access this folder in Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7. You can try the solutions to fix it. If all the solutions can't work well, you need to try Deep Data Recovery to recover the files from the folder you can't access, at least preventing data loss.

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

How do you fix you don't currently have permission to access this folder in Windows 10? I have some files in it and plan to save a file to it as well. What am I gonna do?

It happens suddenly that you have a hard drive with the most important files in it and it told you that you don't currently have permission to access this folder after upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10? It's a problem that many people have encountered. After this, you can't access the folder to delete or rename files, not even put files to the folder at all even if you're the administration.

What does it mean when it says "you don't have permission to access this folder"?

As the warning said "you don't have permission to access this folder", you're supposed to have lost ownership of the folder. Why does it happen? The error is triggered by changes taking place while you upgrading to Windows 10. Once you reassign the ownership of the folder, you've fixed the issue. Here are the workable "you don't currently have permission to access this folder" methods. Try them to work it out.

Fix #1. Regain Ownership of the Folder

The very first method should be gaining ownership of the folder. It does not mean that you don't own the folder, but something changed while upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10. You need to fix it.

1. Right-click on the inaccessible folder and select Properties.

2. In the Security tab, go to the group or username area. Click on Advanced and then click Change.

3. Type in your user account name, generally administrator account name, click on Check Names and then apply it by clicking OK. In this step, you can even click the Find Now button to get the list of accounts. After then, you can choose your account from the list.

4. Tick the option Replace owner on sub containers and objects and then OK.

Fix #2. Give Permissions to All Users

If you give permission to everyone, then there should be no "you don't currently have permission to access this folder" error. Here are the steps to give the folder access permission to everyone.

1. Right-click on the inaccessible folder and click Properties.

2. Click the Edit button in the Security tab.

3. Select Add and type in everyone. Click Check Names and then OK.

4. In the new window, select Everyone and then tick the checkbox for Full Control. Apply it.

Fix #3. Cancel the "Read-only" Option for the Folder

Though it is not might be a reason for why "you don't currently have permission to access this folder", it takes you nothing to try it. After all, sometimes it really works.

1. Right-click on the inaccessible folder and select Properties.

2. In the pop-up window, deselect the Read-Only option.

3. Click OK and Apply the change.

4. This way works very well every time when I can't edit a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file. That's why it comes to my mind when fixing the issue "you don't currently have permission to access this folder".

Fix #4. Using Command Prompt to Fix It

If you have more than one folder of "you don't currently have permission to access this folder" to fix, I suggest you try the command line to take ownership of the Windows root folder by following the steps below.

1. Press the Windows and R keys on the keyboard.

2. Type in cmd in the search box and click Enter. From the command window, you can see your user account. If it is your administrator account, then go on. If not, please log in to your computer as an administrator first.

3.Type in takeown /F "full path of folder or drive" /A /R /D Y and click Enter.

4. Restart your computer. That's it.

Fix #5. Rescue Files Trapped in the Inaccessible Folder

If all the above-mentioned ways are not workable, the last resort is recovering files from the inaccessible folder. After all, it's the most important thing. You can try Deep Data Recovery to recover files from a specific drive and folder in Windows 11/10/8.1/7. Here are the steps.

Download this free data recovery software for Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 before we get down to the task of recovering files from the "you don't currently have permission to access this folder" error folder.

1. Launch the Deep Data Recovery. In the first window, you're supposed to select the file types. My suggestion is to use the default one with all the supported file types selected. By doing it, it will prevent ignoring file types. Click "Start".

2. In the next window, please select the drive where the inaccessible folder is. If the folder is on desktop, favorites, my document, my images, etc, you're supposed to select drive C. If not, select the corresponding drive and click "Scan" to recover deleted files in Windows 10.

3. When the scanning process is finished, you can check out the results and preview files. When finding the target files, select them, and click "Recover" to save them to a new folder on your computer.

The first scan is a Quick Scan. It is not as powerful as Deep Scan. You can try Deep Scan on the result page to scan your inaccessible folder again. It will definitely find more files for you to recover.