Control who can view and edit your files and folders.
Tiffany Antopolski
tiffany@antopolski.com
Shaun McCance
shaunm@gnome.org
Michael Hill
mdhillca@gmail.com
David Aguilera
david.aguilera.moncusi@gmail.com 2011

# Set file permissions

You can use file permissions to control who can view and edit files that you own. To view and set the permissions for a file, right click it and select Properties, then select the Permissions tab.

See and below for details on the types of permissions you can set.

# Files

You can set the permissions for the file owner, the group owner, and all other users of the system. For your files, you are the owner, and you can give yourself read-only or read-and-write permission. Set a file to read-only if you don't want to accidentally change it.

Every user on your computer belongs to a group. On home computers, it is common for each user to have their own group, and group permissions are not often used. In corporate environments, groups are sometimes used for departments or projects. As well as having an owner, each file belongs to a group. You can set the file's group and control the permissions for all users in that group. You can only set the file's group to a group you belong to.

You can also set the permissions for users other than the owner and those in the file's group.

If the file is a program, such as a script, you must select Allow executing file as program to run it. Even with this option selected, the file manager may still open the file in an application or ask you what to do. See for more information.

# Folders

You can set permissions on folders for the owner, group, and other users. See the details of file permissions above for an explanation of owners, groups, and other users.

The permissions you can set for a folder are different from those you can set for a file.

## None

The user will not even be able to see what files are in the folder.

## List files only

The user will be able to see what files are in the folder, but will not be able to open, create, or delete files.

## Access files

The user will be able to open files in the folder (provided they have permission to do so on the particular file), but will not be able to create new files or delete files.

## Create and delete files

The user will have full access to the folder, including opening, creating, and deleting files.

You can also quickly set the file permissions for all the files in the folder by clicking Change Permissions for Enclosed Files. Use the drop-down lists to adjust the permissions of contained files or folders, and click Change. Permissions are applied to files and folders in subfolders as well, to any depth.