CHOWN(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ NAME ✨

chown — change file owner and group 💅

okay bestie, this is the manual for the GNU chown utility, aka the little legend that hands your files over to a different owner and/or group. and honestly? it ate. 🫶

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

chown [OPTION]... [OWNER][:[GROUP]] FILE...
chown [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so lowkey the whole vibe here is: this manual page documents the GNU version of chown (fr fr, not the other ones). chown changes the user and/or group ownership of each given file. that's the plot. ✨

here's the tea on how it decides what to change 👇

  • if you give it only an owner — that's a user name or a numeric user ID — then that user becomes the owner of each given file, and the files' group is not changed. untouched. left alone. 🙈
  • if the owner is followed by a colon and a group name (or a numeric group ID), with no spaces between them, then the group ownership of the files gets changed too. two birds, one command. 💖
  • if there's a colon but no group name after the user name, that user is made the owner of the files and the group of the files is changed to that user's login group. sneaky but iconic.
  • if the colon and group are given but the owner is omitted, then only the group of the files is changed — and in this case, chown performs the same function as chgrp. same energy, different name. 👑
  • if only a colon is given, or if the entire operand is empty, then neither the owner nor the group is changed. literally nothing happens. a whole lot of nothing. 💀

💅 OPTIONS 💅

Change the owner and/or group of each FILE to OWNER and/or GROUP. With --reference, change the owner and group of each FILE to those of RFILE.

  • -c, --changes — like verbose but report only when a change is actually made. no notes for files that were already correct. 🤫
  • -f, --silent, --quiet — suppress most error messages. we're keeping it peaceful over here. 🌸
  • -v, --verbose — output a diagnostic for every file processed. she's chatty and we love her. 🗣️
  • --dereference — affect the referent of each symbolic link rather than the symbolic link itself. and heads up: this is the default. 😌
  • -h, --no-dereference — affect symbolic links instead of any referenced file; useful only on systems that can change the ownership of a symlink. 🦋
  • --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP — change the ownership of each file only if its current owner and/or group match those specified here. either one may be omitted, in which case a match is not required for the omitted attribute. conditional queen. 🎀
  • --no-preserve-root — do not treat / specially. (this is the default btw.)
  • --preserve-root — fail to operate recursively on /. 🛑 protect the root, protect the vibe.
  • --reference=RFILE — use RFILE's ownership rather than specifying values. RFILE is always dereferenced if a symbolic link. 👀
  • -R, --recursive — operate on files and directories recursively. down the whole tree we go. 🌈

🧚 how the traversal works when you also pass -R

The following options modify how a hierarchy is traversed when the -R option is also specified. If more than one is specified, only the final one takes effect. -P is the default. (iykyk — last one wins, always.)

  • -H — if a command line argument is a symlink to a directory, traverse it.
  • -L — traverse every symbolic link to a directory encountered.
  • -P — do not traverse any symbolic links.

⭐ the polite little extras

  • --help — display this help and exit. 🫶
  • --version — output version information and exit. ⭐
Owner is unchanged if missing. Group is unchanged if missing, but changed to login group if implied by a ':' following a symbolic OWNER. OWNER and GROUP may be numeric as well as symbolic. 🔥

💖 EXAMPLES 💖

the classics, bestie. study them like flashcards.

chown root /u

Change the owner of /u to "root". 👑

chown root:staff /u

Likewise, but also change its group to "staff". two-for-one. 💅

chown -hR root /u

Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root". recursive main character energy. 🔥

🥺 AUTHOR 🥺

Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering. legends, truly. 🙌

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

found a bug? spill it here:

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

  • chown(2) — the syscall version, for when you're feeling low-level. 🧚

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chown> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chown invocation'

Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2) 💜 Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. (no cap, that's literally what it says 😭)

and that's the whole page bestie!! this was GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026, page CHOWN(1) — stay slaying, keep your ownership tidy, and don't chown / by accident. mwah. 💋✨

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