How to remove read-only attribute recursively on Windows
I would use the ATTRIB command, for example:
attrib -r c:\folder\*.* /s
attrib
is the command
-r
is the flag for removing read-only attributes
c:\folder\*.*
is the folder you are running it on, plus wildcards for all files
/s
is the flag for doing all sub directories and files
Here is some more documentation and examples for the attrib command: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/attrib
First, open up a command prompt. Then cd
into the directory where you want to start applying the attribute changes. Finally, enter the following command:
attrib -R /S
That will remove the read-only attribute from all files in the current directory, then it will recurse down to do the same thing in all the subdirectories.
- Technet -
attrib
Note: Most of the other answers are using only -r
which might not work on files which have system
or hidden
attributes set.
So here is a solution for recursively removing read-only attribute from all the files (including those which are system or hidden) inside a directory:
attrib -s -h -r "c:\path_to_folder\*.*" /s /d
Description:
-s
Remove system attribute
-h
Remove hidden attribute
-r
Remove read-only attribute
/s
Set/remove attributes in current folder and including subfolders
/d
Set/remove attributes of folders too