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FIXED: You Don’t Currently Have Permission To Access This Folder Error

If you are seeing the “You don’t currently have permission to access this folder” error when opening a folder, follow these steps to fix it.

When you try to open specific folders in Windows, it will show an angry message saying you don’t have sufficient permissions to open or modify the folder. Even if you press the “Continue” button, you get denied from accessing the folder.

Restricted folder you have been denied permission to access this folder

Generally, this error pops up when you try to open system folders. However, this might also happen with general folders if the permissions are modified by you or some other program in the system.

To fix the “You don’t currently have permission to access this folder” error, you must modify and assign proper permissions. Once you do that, you can access and modify the folder if necessary.

Table of contents:

  1. Fix the error
  2. Why am I seeing this error

Steps to Fix You Don’t Currently Have Permission To Access This Folder

To fix the “You don’t currently have permission to access this folder” error, you must provide your user account with “Full Control” permission. Once you have that permission, you can open the folder without any resistance. You can do that with the folder properties tool.

Note: You need administrative privileges to follow the procedure.

  1. Right-click on the affected folder.
  2. Choose the “Properties” option.
  3. Go to the “Security” tab.
  4. Press the “Edit” button.
  5. Click the “Add” button.
  6. Type the user name in the blank field.
  7. Press the “Check names” button.
  8. Click the “Ok” button.
  9. Select your user account under “Group or user names.”
  10. Choose the “Full Control — Allow” checkbox under “Permissions.”
  11. Press the “Ok” button.
  12. Press “Ok” in the main window.

Steps with more details:

The first thing to do is open the folder properties. To do that, find the folder showing the error, right-click on it and choose the “Properties” option.
Fix dont have permission to access folder error - properties

Go to the “Security” tab and click on the “Edit” button in the folder properties window. This action lets you add and modify user permissions in Windows.
Fix dont have permission to access folder error - edit

In this window, see if you can find your user account. If not, click “Add“. It will let you add your user account to the list.
Fix dont have permission to access folder error - add

Type your user account name in the blank field and click the “Check Names” button. This action will automatically set the proper and complete username in the field.
Fix dont have permission to access folder error - username

After confirming the username, click on the “Ok” button to continue.
Fix dont have permission to access folder error - set username

The user account is added to the group list as soon as you do that. Select your user account under the “Groups or user names” section. After selecting the user account, select the “Full Control” checkbox under the “Allow” column. As you can guess, this option gives you complete control over the target folder.
Fix dont have permission to access folder error - full control

Finally, click the “Apply” and “Ok” buttons to save the permission changes.

In the end, click the “Ok” button in the main window to close it.

That is it. You’ve given your user account complete control over the target folder. From now on, you can access the folder without the Insufficient Permissions error. i.e., you successfully fixed the ‘You don’t currently have permission to access this folder’ error.

Why am I seeing the ‘You don’t currently have permission to access this folder’ error?

Even though the error message is pretty apparent, you might be wondering why you don’t have permission to access folders in your system.

There are several reasons for this error. For instance, if a system administrator created the folder and you are not a system administrator, you might get the “you don’t currently have permission to access this folder” error when trying to open or modify it. The same applies to system folders and user-specific folders.

Some system folders cannot be opened, modified, or deleted even if you have administrative privileges. This is because the ownership of the system folders belongs to the System, not to any user. This helps protect important files and folders from being accidentally deleted or modified by users or unwanted programs, like viruses.

If you want to access a blocked folder, you can follow the steps shown above to access the target folder. When dealing with a system folder, only do this if you know what you are doing and it is necessary.

I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below, and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, check out how to disable security questions in Windows 10 and how to add the take ownership option to the right-click menu.

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