How do I move files from one user account to another on the same computer?

I went into file system/home and tried to move files from one user account to another. it refused to move anything because it said I do not have permission. I am the administrator and both accounts are set that way.

3 Answers

Or use sudo

sudo cp source destination
sudo chown user:user file
sudo chmod permissions file

You may need to use that second command(s) to set permissions depending on what you moved where and what access you need.

See also

Run these commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get install gksu
gksu nautilus

A file manager will open. Do not close the terminal in the background, as the terminal is giving you admin permissions. Now you have a file manager as an admin, and you may copy/move/delete whatever you like.

A chown command example for this might be:

chown -R user:usergroup *

• The -R is for recursive change of ownership through subdirectories.
• user is the name of the user account to which you wish to assign ownership of the files.
• usergroup is the user's primary group (usually the same as the user)
• The * is an expression indicating all files.