mjhjmtu

I have a folder, my-folder.
From its parent directory, I first do:

sudo chown -cR matthewslouismarie: my-folder

If I then do: chmod -cR 600 my-folder, I get:

chmod: cannot access 'my-folder/build.sh': Permission denied
chmod: cannot access 'my-folder/vmdk': Permission denied
chmod: cannot access 'my-folder/.git': Permission denied
chmod: cannot access 'my-folder/run.sh': Permission denied
chmod: cannot access 'my-folder/docker': Permission denied
chmod: cannot access 'my-folder/.gitignore': Permission denied

Am I not supposed to fully own this folder and its content?

Notes:

Running sudo chmod -cR 600 my-folder does not print anything. matthewslouismarie is what I get when I type whoami.

As @andyDalton says you need x (execute) permissions to look in a directory.

Therefore you could set permission to 700 however that will set x on regular file.

If you have gnu chmod, then you can use symbolic mode:

chmod -cR u+rwX my-folder

This will only add to the user permission, and will only add x if it as a directory or already exists on group or other.

Also consider if you need to use chmod. It may already be how you want it. chown does not reset it.

The x permission on directories is what controls whether or not a user can traverse into that directory. By using mode 600, you've removed the x bit, and therefore cannot traverse into the directory.

Try this:

find my-folder -type d -exec chmod 700 ;

That will change the permissions for the various directories back to 700 (rwx------). If you want files to be 600, similarly, you could do:

find my-folder -type f -exec chmod 600 ;