Owner, Group, and Others (Everyone)

In file sharing, you set permissions for three user categories: Owner, Group, and Others. There's also Everyone, which is similar to Others. (You can also find these user categories on users' Macs; image-click or right-click any file or folder and then choose Get Info.) You can use the categories to restrict access to a certain set of users, provide different levels of access to different users, or prevent access. When you create shared folders (called share points), you assign permissions to these classes of users.

These user categories are hierarchical; a user gets the permissions of the highest level he's a member of. If a user is both the owner and in a group, the user gets Owner permissions.

Owners

The owner can be a user with a local account or one with a directory domain account. By default, the owner of a file or folder is the user who created it. The owner could also be the administrator.

The owner usually has the highest level of permissions: the ability to do anything to a file, such as edit, delete, or copy it. The owner is the only entity that can change permissions for groups or for Others/Everyone. The owner can also change the owner — that is, transfer ownership to another user.

image The owner doesn't have to be a person — the owner can be ...

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