The Microsoft Photos app is a useful tool that allows users to view, edit, as well as create videos on their Windows 10 computers. Although it works just fine most of the time, there are some instances when you might encounter some issues when using it. One of these issues is when you cannot save media from the Photos app after you’ve edited an image. This is most likely related to a permission issue. However, according to some users, they got the error where the edited media file can’t be saved. When you encounter this kind of error, you will see the following error in your Photos app:
“It looks like you don’t have permission to save changes to this file.
Try saving a copy instead.”
There are several options you can explore to resolve this error. You can try updating the Microsoft Photos app or verify the ownership of the destination folder. You can also re-register and reinstall the app. For more detailed instructions, make use of the options provided below.
Option 1 – Try to update the Microsoft Photos app
The first thing you can do to fix the problem is to update the Microsoft Photos app.
- Open the Microsoft Store and click on the three horizontal dots for the menu located on the top right portion of the window to see the options.
- Next, select Downloads and updates and then click the Get updates button in the top right. This will install any pending updates for all the apps including the Microsoft Photos app using the Microsoft Store.
Option 2 – Try to verify the ownership of the destination folder
The next thing you can do to fix the error is to verify the ownership of the folder because chances are, the location where you’re trying to save the file might not have enough permissions to read and write the file to the disk. Thus, you need to take ownership of the folder by following these steps:
- Type “command prompt” in the Windows Search bar and then right-click on the relevant search result and select “Run as administrator”.
- After that, if a User Account Control or UAC prompt appears, just click on Yes to proceed.
- Next, type and enter this command: TAKEOWN /F <path>
- Note that the <path> is the location of the folder or file in File Explorer.
- Now type and enter this second command: ICACLS <path> /grant administrators:F
- Finally, once the command has been executed, restart your computer and then see if you can now access the folder or file.
Option 3 – Try resetting the Photos app
If the first option of restarting the background process of the Photos app didn’t work for you, you can try to reset the Photos app so that it will use the default factory settings. Note that this option works when you are experiencing this issue after making a couple of changes in the Photos app.
- To get started in resetting the Photos app, open the Windows 10 Settings.
- Then go to Apps > Apps & features.
- After that, scroll down until you see the Photos app option – click on it and open its Advanced options.
- From there, you will see the Reset button, click on it and click and then click on it once more to confirm.
Note: The process may take a couple of minutes to complete. Once it’s done, open the pictures again using the Photos app.
Option 4 – Try reinstalling the Photos app
If none of the first two options given above worked, then you might want to consider reinstalling the Photos app. Unlike what most users think, it isn’t really that hard reinstalling preinstalled apps as you have the Windows PowerShell for that. To use this program in reinstalling the Photos app, follow these steps:
- Open the Windows PowerShell program with admin privileges and key in the following command:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
- After that, execute this second command to re-register and reinstall the Microsoft Photos app.
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml"}
Note: In the command given, do not forget to replace the “PackageFullName” with the actual package name for the Photos app. After executing the command, it will uninstall the Photos app from your computer so you need to install it again from the Windows Store by simply looking for it. Once you found it, just click on install to start the installation process.
