Finding specific things

Finding files another account has

Updated 2026-07-31 · 4 min read

A Mac with several accounts hides files behind permissions, and search respects those walls.

The shared spaces

• /Users/Shared — readable and writable by every account; the drop-zone for cross-user

files

• ~/Public in each account — readable by others, with a Drop Box subfolder others

can write to but not read

ls -la /Users/Shared
ls -la /Users/otheruser/Public

What you can and cannot see

You can read another user's Public folder and Shared. You cannot read their home folder — Documents, Desktop, and the rest are 700 (owner only), and search skips what it cannot read.

ls /Users/otheruser              # visible: the folder names
ls /Users/otheruser/Documents    # Permission denied

Searching across accounts as admin

An administrator can read other accounts with sudo:

sudo find /Users/otheruser -iname "*report*" 2>/dev/null

Ethically and practically, this is for your own second account or with consent — it is reading another person's files.

Moving a file to another user

Put it in /Users/Shared or drop it into the target user's Public/Drop Box. Direct placement into their home fails on permissions.

Fast User Switching gotcha

Files another logged-in user has open may be locked or mid-write. And a file created in Shared inherits your ownership — the other user can read it but may not be able to modify it until permissions are opened:

chmod 666 /Users/Shared/thefile      # both users read/write

Search scope

Spotlight indexes per-user and respects permissions, so your search sees your files plus shared/public spaces, not other accounts' private files. That is correct behaviour, and it is why "search This Mac" can still miss a file that exists — it belongs to someone else.

Common questions

Can I search another user's files on a shared Mac?

Only their Public folder and /Users/Shared. Their home folder is owner-only; an admin can reach it with sudo, which means reading their files.

How do I give a file to another account on the same Mac?

Place it in /Users/Shared or the recipient's Public/Drop Box. Direct placement in their home folder is blocked by permissions.