How to Find Files by Group and Change Their Permissions in Ubuntu (find -exec chmod)

The Group Permission Rectification

When managing shared directories (like /var/www/ or a Git repository) on an Ubuntu Linux server, it is common for users to create files with incorrect default permissions. For example, a developer might upload a script assigned to the deploy group, but they accidentally leave the file with read-only permissions (644) instead of group-executable permissions (775). If there are hundreds of these files scattered across dozens of subdirectories, manually running chmod on each one is impossible. You must instruct the search engine to find the files and immediately execute a permission change on the results.

Using the find Command with -group and -exec

The Linux find command allows you to chain the -group filter directly to the -exec action flag to run an arbitrary system command (like chmod) against the matched files.

1. Open your Terminal application (Ctrl + Alt + T) or log into your server via SSH.
2. To scan the /opt/scripts/ directory for all files belonging to the admin group and instantly grant group-write permissions to those files, type the following command exactly:
3. sudo find /opt/scripts/ -type f -group admin -exec chmod g+w {} \;
4. Press Enter.

Execution Payload Syntax

The -exec payload utilizes very specific syntax. The engine first identifies a file matching the group criteria. It then executes chmod g+w. The curly braces {} act as a dynamic placeholder; the find command automatically injects the absolute path of the matched file into those braces. Finally, the escaped semicolon \; terminates the execution string, telling the engine to run the command individually for each file found. This compound structure is an absolute necessity for system administrators enforcing strict access control lists across massive directory trees.