How to change ownership of subdirectories?

To change the ownership of subdirectories along with their contents, you can use the chown command with the -R (recursive) option. This will apply the ownership change to the specified directory and all its subdirectories and files.

Syntax

sudo chown -R new_user:new_group /path/to/directory

Example

To change the ownership of a directory named data_directory and all its subdirectories and files to the user new_user and group new_group, you would use:

sudo chown -R new_user:new_group data_directory

Key Points

• -R: This option stands for recursive, meaning it will change the ownership for all files and subdirectories within the specified directory.
• new_user:new_group: You can specify both a new owner and a new group. If you only want to change the owner, you can omit the group (e.g., new_user:).

Using the -R option should be done with caution, especially in system directories, as it can affect system functionality if used incorrectly.