Mac How-to Set-Change Ownership on Files and Directories by Command-Line

Mac OS X Setting Ownerships for File/Directory

Hello Mac User! This is Tutorial Shows You Step-by-step How-to Setup or Change the Ownership over Files and Directories on Mac OS X BSD/Unix.

The Ownership Decide How is the Owner of Files and Directories on the Mac OS X File System.

To Set the Ownership Over Files and Directories is the First Step in Setting Up Permissions and so Establish a Control and Security over the System.

To Follow the Tutorial You will Need to have a Little Practice to Work on the Mac Console Terminal Command Line.

Setting Ownership on Mac OS X File System - Featured

To
Open a Terminal Shell emulator window
Launch Finder:

Select Applications:

Double-Click on Utilities:

Double-Click over Terminal:
Switch to the Bash Shell
(Press “Enter” to Execute Commands)
```
bash
```

How-to Quick-Start with Command Line on Mac:

Mac Console Quick-Start

Getting-Started with Terminal on Mac.

Who Can Set/Change the Ownership?

Only the Administrators or a Super-User Can Change a File/Directory Ownership!
How to Set/Change the Ownership?
- To Set/Change Ownership Over a Single File/Directory:
```
sudo chown [myUser]:[myGroup] [myEntity]
```
  Where [myUser] is your’s user Name & [myGroup] is your’s user Primary Group.
  
  How-to Look Up User Name & Group on Terminal
  
  Find User Name & Group
  
  Shell Find User Name+Group
  
  For Instance:
```
mkdir -p $HOME/hello/world
```
  Now to Give the ‘world’ Directory to the ‘root’ User do:
```
sudo chown root:admin $HOME/hello/world
```
  Checking Ownership:
```
ls -l $HOME/hello
```
  You’ll see the List of contained Entities with Type, Owners & Permissions.
- To Set/Change Permissions Recursively Over a Directory and it’s Content (Subdirectories and Files):
```
sudo chown -R [myUser]:[myGroup] [myEntity]
```
  For Instance:
```
sudo touch $HOME/hello/world/happy
```
  Checking Ownership:
```
ls -l $HOME/hello && ls -l $HOME/hello/world
```
  Now to Get Back the ‘world’ Directory with the ‘happy’ File 🙂
```
sudo chown -R [myUser]:[myGroup] $HOME/hello/world
```
  Check Ownership like Above…
How-to Set Permissions on Mac File System:

Mac Permissions Quick-Start

Setting Up Permissions on Mac.