[macOS] Picard crashes immediately on launch – Fix for permission error on ~/.config

MusicBrainz Picard
1

System info:

  • Picard version: 2.13.3

  • macOS: 14.6.1 (Sonoma), x86_64

Problem

After installing Picard, it crashed immediately on every launch with the macOS “quit unexpectedly” dialog. Running Picard in debug mode revealed the actual cause:

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: b'/Users/<username>/.config/MusicBrainz'

Picard was unable to create its config directory under ~/.config/MusicBrainz due to incorrect permissions on the ~/.config folder.

Solution

Step 1: Fix the permissions on the .config directory:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) ~/.config

Step 2: Manually create the MusicBrainz config directory:

mkdir -p ~/.config/MusicBrainz

Step 3: Launch Picard normally — it should now start without issues.

How I found the cause

Instead of just seeing the crash dialog, I ran Picard from Terminal with the --debug flag to get detailed logs:

"/Applications/MusicBrainz Picard.app/Contents/MacOS/picard-run" --debug

This immediately showed the PermissionError, which pointed directly to the fix.

Hope this helps anyone else running into the same issue!

2 Likes