Chown

For the surname, see Chown (surname).

chown /ˈtʃoʊn/, short for change owner, is a shell command for changing the owning user of Unix-based file system files – including special files such as directories.

chown
Example usage of chown command
Original author(s)	Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie
Developer(s)	AT&T Bell Laboratories
Initial release	November 3, 1971; 53 years ago (1971-11-03)
Operating system	Unix and Unix-like, IBM i
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command

The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user (such as via sudo). A regular user cannot give away their ownership of a file.^[1]

The version of chown bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.^[2]

The command is available for Windows via UnxUtils.^[3] The command was ported to IBM i.^[4]

See also

• chgrp – Shell command for changing the group of a file
• chmod – Shell command for changing access permissions of a file
• List of POSIX commands
• takeown