How to Take Ownership of Files or Folders on Windows 10

How to Take Ownership of Files or Folders on Windows 10

By default, a user who creates files and folders will be marked as the owner of them. Ownership gives users full authority over the created file or folder so they can choose who gets access to use and modify it.


How to become the owner of files and folders in Windows

Windows may deny access to files and folders to other users due to a lack of permissions. If the original owner of that file or folder is not available, as an administrator you can take ownership of the file or folder by exploring the properties of the file.

How to become the owner of files or folders

With administrative privileges, you can take ownership of any file or folder created by another user on Windows 10. Once you are logged in with an administrator account, here’s how to take ownership of a file or folder.

Step 1: Right click on the file or folder and select Properties from the context menu.

Open the properties window


Open the properties window

2nd step: In the Properties window, switch to the Security tab and click the Advanced button.

Properties window


Properties window

Step 3: Here, the name of the current owner of the file or folder will be displayed at the top. Click the Edit button to transfer ownership to someone else.

Advanced security settings


Advanced security settings

Step 4: In the next window, under “Enter the object name to select”, enter a username to which you want to transfer ownership. Once entered, verify the validity of the entered username by clicking the Check Names button next to it. Then click on OK.

Transfer file ownership


Transfer file ownership

Alternatively, you can also use the Advanced button to quickly search for a username.

Step 5: When you change the ownership of a folder, if you want, you can also apply the change of ownership to all of its subfolders by checking the “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects” box in the window. Advanced security settings “.

Apply property changes to all subfolders


Apply property changes to all subfolders

Step 6: After that, hit Apply and then hit OK.

Now that the ownership of the selected file or folder has been transferred, you can now grant the new owner various permissions to modify that file or folder.

How to grant permissions for a file or folder

After changing owners, you will need to grant full access to the new owner by granting certain permissions to edit, read, write, etc. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Right click on the file or folder and select Properties from the context menu. In the Properties window, switch to the Security tab and click the Advanced button.

2nd step: In the Advanced Security Settings window, click the Add button.

Change permissions for a file or folder


Change permissions for a file or folder

Step 3: In the Authorization Entry window that opens, click on “Select a principal” to specify the user to whom you are giving the authorizations.

Authorization entry for test


Authorization entry for test

Step 4: Add the name of the user in the “Select a user or a group” window. Then click on OK.

Step 5: After that, you will be able to select from the list of permissions under “Basic permissions”. Select “Full Control” to grant all available permissions. Then click on OK.

Give permissions to the new owner


Give permissions to the new owner

That’s all there is to it. The file or folder in question has now been transferred to its new owner.

How to take ownership of files or folders with Command Prompt

Besides tweaking the file properties, if you are comfortable with the Command Prompt, you can also take ownership of any file or folder using the takeown.exe tool. Here’s how.

Step 1: Open File Explorer and recover the file or folder to transfer ownership. Select it and click Copy Path option at the top to copy the file / folder path.

Copy folder path


Copy folder path

2nd step: Now open the start menu, type cmd, and click Run as administrator on your right to open the command prompt with administrator rights.

Open Command Prompt


Open Command Prompt

Step 3: In the Command Prompt window, type the following command and press Enter to take ownership of a file or folder.

takeown /F <FilePath>

Replace the in the above command by the path of the file or folder copied in step 1.

Take ownership with the command prompt


Take ownership with the command prompt

Once done, you will see a confirmation indicating the change of ownership.

As we just saw, using the Command Prompt is much faster than going through multiple property windows. However, the only catch is that you cannot specify a user or group when changing ownership. This means that you will only be able to transfer ownership to the current user or to the local administrators group.

Also on Guiding Tech

Take ownership of the property

Taking Ownership will grant you the necessary permissions to access or modify files and folders on Windows 10. Once transferred, you can read, write, or modify that file or folder as you see fit.

In addition to the above, ownership can also come in handy when you want to force delete files and folders or import files into the registry editor.

Last updated on July 21, 2021

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