Fix Terminal “Operation not permitted” Error in macOS Sonoma, Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave

If you’re a Mac command line user you may have noticed that many frequently used commands entered into the Terminal (or iTerm) result in an “Operation not permitted” error message since updating to MacOS Mojave 10.14 or later, including Sonoma, Ventura, Monterey, and Big Sur. The “Operation not permitted” error in the Terminal can be seen after issuing even simple commands like using ‘ls’ ‘mv’ and ‘cp’ within the users own directory, but also in many other directory locations on the Mac, and when trying to use many defaults commands. Obviously this type of error message makes navigating and using the command line in MacOS to be quite difficult if not impossible for many purposes. Don’t worry, the Terminal is not broken in new MacOS versions.
This walkthrough will show you how to fix “Operation not permitted” error messages seen at the command line in Terminal for Mac OS in Mojave 10.14 or later.
















