How to Reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10

Sometimes you may want to restore inherited permissions of a file or a folder. Windows supports inheritance for an object, e.g. files can inherit permissions from their parent folder. Also every object has an Owner which is the user account that can set ownership and change permissions.

By resetting effective permissions, you will restore NTFS permissions of files and folders back to their default inherited permissions. Effective permissions are based on a local evaluation of the user's group membership, user privileges, and permissions.

To reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10, do the following.

   1. Open an elevated Command Prompt.
   2. Run the following command to reset permissions for a file: icacls "full path to your file" /reset.
   3. To reset permissions for a folder: icacls "full path to the folder" /reset.
   4. To reset permissions for a folder, its files, and subfolders, run the command icacls "full path to the folder" /reset /t /c /l.

Substitute the example paths with the actual values matching your system.

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