Articles/Python

PermissionError in Python — What It Means and How to Fix It

What Python's PermissionError exception means and how to resolve it.

Published October 28, 2026

PermissionError is raised when an operation is attempted without sufficient filesystem permissions.

Key points

  • Catch it specifically with "except PermissionError:" when you want to handle this exact case rather than a bare except

Example

open('/root/file.txt', 'w')  # PermissionError
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