Microsoft DOS attrib command

• About attrib
• Availability
• Attrib syntax
• Attrib examples
• Extended information

About attrib

Attrib allows a user to change the attributes of a file or files. With attrib, you can change any of the add or remove any of the attributes below. Note: if you need to change the ACL of a file see the CACLS command.

Read-only - Allows the file to be only viewed and not written to or changed.

Archived - Allows Microsoft Backup and other backup programs to know what files to back up.

Hidden - Makes files invisible to standard users and hidden if show hidden files is enabled.

System - Makes the file an important system file.

Note: With new versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 and 8) there are additional attrib options not mentioned in the above list. See the Syntax for your version of Windows to get all available options.

Availability

The attrib command is an external command that is available in the below Microsoft operating systems attrib.exe.

MS-DOS 3.0 and above
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 10

Syntax

Windows 7 and Windows 8 syntax

Displays or changes file attributes.

ATTRIB [+R | -R] [+A | -A ] [+S | -S] [+H | -H] [+I | -I] [drive:][path][file name] [/S [/D] [/L]]

See our attrib examples for information and examples on how to use this command.

Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP syntax

Displays or changes file attributes.

ATTRIB [+R | -R] [+A | -A ] [+S | -S] [+H | -H] [[drive:] [path] file name] [/S [/D]]

See our attrib examples for information and examples on how to use this command.

Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP recovery console syntax

Note: The below options are the available options in the Windows recovery console.

Changes attributes on one file or directory.

ATTRIB -R | +R | -S | +S | -H | +H | -C | +C [file name]

See our attrib examples for information and examples on how to use this command.

Microsoft Windows 95, 98, and ME syntax

Displays or changes file attributes.

ATTRIB [+R | -R] [+A | -A] [+S | -S] [+H | -H] [[drive:][path]file name] [/S]

Attrib examples

attrib

Typing attrib by itself displays all files in the current directory and each of their attributes. If any file is hidden it also displays those files.

As can be seen in the above example we typed the dir command to list the files in the current directory and could only see the "computer.bat" file listed. However, if you type attrib by itself, there are three files in this directory, "computer.bat" with read-only, "example.txt" with hidden, and "hope.txt" with the hidden and read-only attribute.

attrib +r autoexec.bat

Add the read-only attribute to the autoexec.bat file so it cannot be modified until the read-only attribute is taken off. This command is helpful for important system files or any other file that you do not want to have mistakenly edited or changed by another program.

attrib +h config.sys

Add the hidden attribute to the config.sys file causing it to be not be seen by the average user.

attrib -h config.sys

This command does the opposite of the example shown before this command. Instead of hiding the file this command makes the file visible if hidden.

attrib +r +h autoexec.bat

Finally, this example adds two attributes to the autoexec.bat and makes the file read-only as well as hidden.

• How can I see hidden files in MS-DOS?
• How to hide a file in MS-DOS and Windows command line.

Extended information

Below is the MS-DOS and the Windows command line file attributes bit positions and hexadecimal values with bit positions in the order of "7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0."