Change folder permissions and ownership

command-line permissions folder

3,341,442

Solution 1

Make the current user own everything inside the folder (and the folder itself):

sudo chown -R $USER ~/.blabla

Solution 2

Use chown to change ownership and chmod to change rights.

As Paweł Karpiński said, use the -R option to apply the rights for all files inside of a directory too.

Note that both these commands just work for directories too. The -R option makes them also change the permissions for all files and directories inside of the directory.

For example

sudo chown -R username:group directory

will change ownership (both user and group) of all files and directories inside of directory and directory itself.

sudo chown username:group directory

will only change the permission of the folder directory but will leave the files and folders inside the directory alone.

As enzotib mentioned, you need to use sudo to change the ownership from root to yourself.

Edit:

Note that if you use chown <user>: <file> (Note the left-out group), it will use the default group for that user.

If you want to change only the group, you can use:

chown :<group> <file>

Solution 3

If you prefer, this can be done with a GUI as well. You will need to open Nautilus as root to do so. Press Alt + F2 to access the "Run Applications" dialog and enter gksu nautilus

Next, browse to and right click on the folder you would like to modify. Then, select "Properties" from the context menu. You can now select the user or group that you would like to be the "Owner" of the folder as well as the permissions you would like to grant them. Finally, press "Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files" to apply the changes recursively.

Though it seems this does not always work for some operations in a deep folder tree. If it does not work use the appropriate terminal command.

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Solution 4

If it's owned by root you can do this

sudo chown <your username>:<your usergroup> -R <path to>/.blabla

Since ./blabla owned by root you need to gain root privileges to change that. That's what sudo will do. The -R option for the chown command says: this directory and everything in it recursively.

Solution 5

you should try chmod -R

View more solutions

3,341,442

Author by

user2413

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

user2413 over 1 year
I would like the user to have full rights on this folder (as well as all sub-directories and files in it):
```
~/.blabla
```
currently owned by root.

I have found numerous posts (in this forum and elsewhere) on how to do this for files but I can't find a way to do it for whole folders.
- Code.Decode over 13 years
  
  Could anyone add a graphical method I wonder?
- Michael Gundlach over 13 years
  
  @fluteflute is there a graphical method?
- Code.Decode over 13 years
  
  gksu nautilus perhaps. I'm not quite sure and would like to know.... ;)
- ArifMustafa almost 6 years
  
  simply sudo chown -R username foldername
enzotib over 13 years

It should be said that "sudo" is required for chown.
user2413 over 13 years

fatanstic. You should consider maybe replacing 'user:user' by username.
quantme over 12 years

very helpful for newbies (like me) when don't know what to type in 'usergroup' for sudo chown <your username>:<your usergroup> -R <path to>/.blabla
Casper over 10 years

Although I have changed the owner and group to Me and my group, I cannot edit the file acpi-support. Why? Thx.
GoProCameraByGoPro about 9 years

how do we get the name of a group?
Donato almost 9 years

Change group without specifying user?
Ismail over 7 years

The predefined variables helped me: sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /path/to/dir. Thanks!
Benjamin R almost 7 years

BEWARE of recursively taking ownership of ANY directory. Think before you leap. Don't be chown copypastin' from the internet, kids. Just because you want to install a node package and it won't let you, don't sudo chown -R just because the fist hit from googling the error message says to. Reckless sudo chown -R-ing can kill your OS.
addohm over 6 years

It needs to be said that using the -R option only applies to files and folders that exist in the directory already. It does NOT apply to future creations. For example, if you create another folder or file as root within the folder you've already changed permissions on, you will have the same experiences you're having now until you chmod\chown them again.
lesolorzanov over 5 years

Do you know how to set a group for all new files?
Robert Sinclair over 4 years

much better than sudo chown -R $USER ~/.blabla