chmod 750 (rwxr-x---)

The owner can read, write, and execute; the group can read and execute; others are locked out entirely.

When to use 750

Directories shared with one trusted group but private from the world. 750 (rwxr-x---) gives the owner full control, lets a specific group read and traverse, and shuts out everyone else entirely. Ideal for a /srv/deploy or /var/app dir owned by the app user and group-readable by a deployers or www-data group.
Group-shared scripts and binaries. An operational script the owner maintains and a defined team needs to run, but that should be invisible to other accounts on the host. The group's r-x permits execution and reading; others get nothing.
Web docroots served by a group-membership model. When the web server runs under a group that's added to the app group, 750 on the docroot lets the server traverse and read while keeping the path off-limits to every other user — tighter than 755 for multi-tenant boxes.
Per-team data directories on a shared server. A folder the finance group may enter and read but engineering and other groups may not — group access without world exposure.

Common mistakes & gotchas

Group membership is the load-bearing part — and it's easy to get wrong. 750 only helps if the right accounts are actually in the directory's group. A web server set to www-data won't read a 750 dir owned by group appusers unless www-data is added to appusers (and the process re-reads its groups, often requiring a restart).
The owner's group, not the user, sets who 'group' is. After chmod 750, run ls -l and check the group column. A common mistake is setting 750 but leaving the group as the owner's personal primary group, which grants the intended team nothing — fix with chgrp first, then chmod 750.
others get zero — including most service/backup accounts. Unlike 755, a 750 directory is invisible to any account outside the group. If a monitoring or backup agent runs under its own user that isn't in the group, it will fail to traverse the path. Add it to the group or it won't see the data.
Files inside still need their own group perms. 750 on the directory grants the group traversal/listing, but a file inside at 600 stays owner-only. For the group to read files, set them to 640 (rw-r-----) to match the directory's group-read intent.

750 vs the alternatives

755 (rwxr-xr-x) when the world should be able to read and traverse — public dirs and programs. Choose 750 instead when you want exactly one group in and absolutely no world access; it's the 'private to a team' variant of 755.
700 (rwx------) when not even a group should reach inside — owner-only. 750 is the deliberate step up from 700 that admits one trusted group while still excluding everyone else.
640 (rw-r-----) is the matching file permission inside a 750 directory: owner read/write, group read, others none. Rule: group-shared dirs → 750, the data files within → 640.

Set it with chmod

Apply this permission to a single file:

chmod 750 filename

Or apply it recursively to a directory and everything inside it:

chmod -R 750 directory/

The same thing in symbolic form:

chmod u=rwx,g=rx,o= filename

Frequently asked questions

What does chmod 750 mean?

chmod 750 sets rwxr-x---: the owner gets full read/write/execute, the group gets read and execute (traverse/list/run), and others get nothing. It's the standard permission for directories or scripts shared with one group but hidden from the rest of the system.

When should I use 750 instead of 755?

Use 750 on a multi-user host where only a specific group should reach the directory and the world must be excluded. 755 exposes the listing and traversal to everyone; 750 limits that to the owning group.

Why can't my web server read a 750 directory?

Almost always because the web server's user isn't a member of the directory's group. Add that user to the group (e.g. usermod -aG appgroup www-data) and restart the service so it picks up the new group membership.

What file permission pairs with a 750 directory?

640 (rw-r-----) for data files — owner read/write, group read, others none — so the group can both traverse the directory and read the files inside, while the world is shut out at every level.

Other common permissions

Or build any permission with the interactive chmod calculator.

chmod 750 — what rwxr-x--- means

Permission breakdown