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All of a sudden I find I cannot edit any documents as they are locked. I have gone into finder menu and get info and that states that they are unlocked. Also when I open and try to edit them it states I have to duplicate and edit,I have tried this and can edit, but when I try to save it refuses to allow. I recently updated to 10.15.7 whether this has anything to do with it I don't know. Any Help would be much appreciated

Many thanks tetsujin for the prompt reply. As regards permissions issue I have all administrator access. Re the previous os Im afraid I don't know. The documents I refer to are all , Pages and numbers. As you can probably tell, I am not that computer literate, although I can, after a fashion find my way through sites such as this etc.,(until now that is)!!! So any input is very helpful. Many thanks for your inputs What put me on the right path was the uploaded screen shot of finder where the highlighted general part "where" told me that I was trying to edit backup files, goodness knows how, but I have now restored my document folder from time machine and all is now working normally,I am in my 80's so it goes to show, its never too late to learn. Very many thank you to all

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    Where are the affected file? It sounds like you have a permissions issue; they're not actually locked, you're just trying to write to an area you don't have full access to. What OS was on the Mac immediately before your update to 10.15.7?
    – Tetsujin
    Oct 16, 2021 at 7:49
  • Your edit doesn't add any useful information, I'm afraid. Get info on one of the affected files & check the areas marked in red on this image… i.stack.imgur.com/I64LN.png First, we need to know if it's in a writable area, so the file path is important. Mac HD Name/Users/your Short Name/folder/ then what permissions you have to the file.
    – Tetsujin
    Oct 16, 2021 at 12:17

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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.

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