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Give an App Access to the Whole Disk

In modern versions of Mac OS X, such as macOS 11 and 12, some applications require access to parts of the disk that are normally not accessible. These might include utilities and older programs which store files in the "wrong" place.

You can give a program permission to access the whole disk if you need to. Most programs will ask for this as necessary, but older programs might not, or you might have already denied this access.

Note that there are good reasons to prevent unrestricted access to your disk, so only do this if you are sure it is necessary. If you want to proceed, here are the steps:

Go to Apple menu, then System Preferences.
Click "Security & Privacy".
Click the padlock at bottom-left and enter admin credentials.
Click the "Privacy" tab.
Click "Fill Disk Access" in the list on the left.
Drag the app which needs access into the list.
Quit from System Preferences.

Note: In macOS 13 the System Preferences app is called "System Settings" and the layout of the "Security & Privacy" section is different, but hopefully you can adapt these steps.