chown - Change Ownership in Linux

From the Linux Essential Commands cheat sheet · File Permissions & Ownership · verified Jul 2026

chown - Change Ownership

Change file owner and group

bash
# Change owner
sudo chown username file.txt

# Change owner and group
sudo chown username:groupname file.txt

# Change only group
sudo chown :groupname file.txt

# Recursive
sudo chown -R username:groupname directory/
✅ Requires sudo for files you do not own
💡 Use colon (:) to specify group
🔍 -R changes ownership recursively in directories
ownershippermissionssudo

More Linux tasks

Back to the full Linux Essential Commands cheat sheet