chown Command Examples

Change user and group ownership of files and directories. More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/chown-invocation.html.

• Change the owner user of a file/directory:

chown {{user}} {{path/to/file_or_directory}}

• Change the owner user and group of a file/directory:

chown {{user}}:{{group}} {{path/to/file_or_directory}}

• Change the owner user and group to both have the name user:

chown {{user}}: {{path/to/file_or_directory}}

• Recursively change the owner of a directory and its contents:

chown -R {{user}} {{path/to/directory}}

• Change the owner of a symbolic link:

chown -h {{user}} {{path/to/symlink}}

• Change the owner of a file/directory to match a reference file:

chown --reference {{path/to/reference_file}} {{path/to/file_or_directory}}