Apple Mac mini, IOS Catalina 10.15.7 All documents are now showing as locked, but finder menu shows as unlocked

Solution 1:

It’s ok to be new to a platform. Since you haven’t narrowed this down to the specific details, let’s get you two easy tasks to start with.

  1. Check your last backup and if you have none, get an external drive and connect it and let Time Machine save all the files. You don’t need to configure anything or fix any permissions for that to run.
  2. While the backup is running open system preferences and make a brand new admin account. Then log out of your problem account ( apple menu log out) and then log in to that new account. Repeat your check to make a new document in pages or something.

Now you will have a backup and can experiment (for what if the system is about to malfunction and you are doing things correct, or if you make a mistake or get some not perfect advice here). Second you will know if the system is still working and it’s just permissions on one account.

Good luck learning a bit and maybe fixing this yourself with an erase install or narrowing it more to something we can help address here.