How to Permanently Change the Umask Value on Linux Systems

This tutorial guides Linux users on how to permanently change their system's umask value, especially useful for newly installed systems.

Umask (user file‑creation mask) defines the default permissions for newly created files and directories.

The following octal values represent different permission masks:

0 – read, write, execute (rwx)

1 – read and write (rw-)

2 – read and execute (r-x)

3 – read only (r--)

4 – write and execute (-wx)

5 – write only (-w-)

6 – execute only (--x)

7 – no permissions (---)

Most Linux distributions default to a umask of 0022 (or 022). You can view the current setting with the umask command, or temporarily change it by running umask 027, for example.

New files are created with default permissions of 0666 and directories with 0777; applying the umask yields typical permissions of 0644 for files and 0755 for directories.

Some consider the default 022 mask a privacy risk because it allows other users to read newly created files.

To permanently set a new umask, add a umask line to your shell’s configuration file (e.g., ~/.bashrc) or to /etc/profile.

After updating, all newly created files and directories will inherit the new permissions, though existing ones remain unchanged.

You can verify permissions with ls -lah in any directory, or via the file properties dialog in GNOME.