under macos 10.15.7, why cannot cron find files on my external hard drive? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

The answer is laid out explicitly in https://www.getdroidtips.com/cron-permission-issues-macos/. This is risky and "do not try this at home!" Anybody doing this must assume the full risk.

Quote:

If the latest versions of Mac OS faces cron permissions issues, then you should have to grant full disk access. Let’s go by the following steps to allow the full disk access to cron.

1. Go to System Preferences in Apple Menu and select the “Security & Privacy” option.

2. In the “Privacy” tab, select the “Full Disk Access” option from the side menu option.

3. Click on the lock icon in the corner and authenticate with the system password to modify full disk access settings in your Mac.

4. Now pull down the “Go” menu from the Finder in Mac OS and choose “Go to Folder.”

5. Now enter the path: /usr/sbin/cron and select Go.

6. Now you have to drag and drop the “cron” in the list of apps and processes with full disk access permission. Cron should now appear in the list.

7. Get out of system preferences window and open Finder sbin window once you finished.

There are security measures introduced with the release of new Mac OS, and causes issues like operation not permitted.