To give yourself full permissions for both files and directories and prevent the group and other users from having access: umask 077 . This subtracts 077 from the system defaults for files and directories 666 and 777. Giving a default access permissions for your files of 600 (rw-------) and for directories of 700 (rwx------) . ... This subtracts 002 from the sytem defaults to give a default access permission for your files of 664 (rw-rw-r--) and for your directories of 775 (rwxrwxr-x) . ...