two methods: ls -lR | grep ^d | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f | xargs chmod 755 Or much better: find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; The find command is amazingly useful. Corrin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org