From https://github.com/rstudio/tinytex/issues/24#issuecomment-372043672: > `/usr/local/bin` should be writable by default on (at least recent versions of) macOS. Please no 🤦 . No R package should _ever_ automatically/directly change permissions on a file/directory outside of the user's home directory<sup>1</sup>, nor encourage it as a long-term solution. Further, your script is changing ownership for files that have nothing at all to do with TinyTex. Lastly, setting up symlinks from `/usr/local/bin/` into any user's `/Users/*/bin/` is as bad if not worse than changing the ownership of `/usr/local/bin/`; even if that one user keeps it up to date, it is bad practice and has risks. There are two ways to do it "responsibly" (from an OS security mindset): 1. Setup a Homebrew formula so that it can be installed and managed in a central location `/opt/homebrew/...`, usable to all users, and does not allow users to access other users' home directory contents. The presumption here is that the setup of Homebrew is permitted by a local user, and if on a multi-user system, who can do what with `brew` is for them to decide (not an R package maintainer ... no offense intended). I confess that I don't know homebrew well enough to be able to help much with this approach. 2. Initially install _completely_ to a local or temporary location, then use the `ocascript` "with administrator privileges" trick for moving everything to `/usr/local/bin/` and `/usr/local/share/TinyTex/`, _no symlinks required_. This supports multi-users just as natively without any fearsome user-directory-breach nor any permanent side-effects such as from `chown`. I might be willing to help with number 2, though I apologize it will not happen any time soon. But I think that's a much preferred way-forward than the current method. As a temporary step, can you do one or more of the following: 1. Add what the original owner/group were changed _from_? On my system I _think_ it's `root:staff` but I can't know now. This allows security-obsessed people like me to undo the change to what it was before. 2. There should be no need to recursively change all non-TinyTex contents of `/usr/local/bin/` to be owned by me, please remove the `-R` from `chown -R`. (This should never have been needed in the first place, this removal should have zero effect on the installation.) 3. Once installation is done, _undo the change_ (using `ocascript` a second time) on `/usr/local/bin/` (again, no need for recursive changes). <sup> 1: When external non-R software is required, if *that* software has a script that handles multi-user situations, then that is IMO an acceptable solution. No software I've ever installed on linux ever attempted to change ownership of `/usr/local/bin`, for many good reasons. Now that I've moved to MacOS, I continue the unix-y security mindsets, most of which Apple agrees with. </sup>