How to take ownership of a Windows File

microsoft black logo

Table of Contents

Last updated on April 17th, 2023 at 12:35 am

Read Time:1 Minute, 4 Second

If you have a stubborn file that you cannot delete or move, then you will need to take ownership of the file to allow you to carry out any action on it.

To do this is a pretty simple process, just follow our step by step guide below to carry this out and enable you to take control back of your files!

Instructions

First of all, you will require an elevated command prompt. So, click the Start button and type in CMD which should bring up the command prompt option in your start menu, instead of left clicking the command prompt, right click on it and select Run as Administrator:

How to take ownership of a Windows File 1

This will then open up an elevated command prompt as you can see from the top of the window:

How to take ownership of a Windows File 2

Then type in the following commands, hitting the Enter key after each one:

  • takeown /F “PATH TO FILE”
  • icacls “PATH TO FILE” /grant administrators:F

How to take ownership of a Windows File 3

How to take ownership of a Windows File 4

You will now have full ownership of the file stated and you should now be able to go ahead with changing or deleting the file.

Comments

If you have any questions or feedback on this guide, please feel free to leave us a message in our comments section below and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Click to rate this post!
[Total: 0 Average: 0]

Free Subscription

If you want to be notified when we post more quality guides like this one, sign up to our free subscription service and you will receive an email when a new post is live.

Join 441 other subscribers.

No need to worry, we will not be filling your inbox with spam and you can unsubscribe anytime you like.


Leave us a message...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.