---
name: "edquota"
section: "8"
platform: "macos"
package: "diskdev_cmds"
version: "757"
release: "macOS 26.5"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/edquota"
---

# edquota(8)

edit user quotas

## NAME

**edquota** – edit user quotas

## SYNOPSIS

**edquota** \[**-u**\] \[**-p** *proto-username*\] *username* *...*

**edquota** **-g** \[**-p** *proto-groupname*\] *groupname* *...*

**edquota** **-t** \[**-u**\]

**edquota** **-t** **-g**

## DESCRIPTION

**Edquota** is a quota editor.   By default, or if the  **-u** flag is specified, one or more users may be specified on the command line. For each user a temporary file is created with an ASCII representation of the current disk quotas for that user. The list of filesystems with user quotas is determined by scanning the mounted filesystems for a *.quota.ops.user* file located at its root. An editor is invoked on the ASCII file. The editor invoked is  [vi(1)](/vi/1.md) unless the environment variable  EDITOR specifies otherwise.

The quotas may then be modified, new quotas added, etc. Setting a quota to zero indicates that no quota should be imposed. Setting a hard limit to one indicates that no allocations should be permitted. Setting a soft limit to one with a hard limit of zero indicates that allocations should be permitted on only a temporary basis (see  **-t** below). The current usage information in the file is for informational purposes; only the hard and soft limits can be changed.

On leaving the editor, **edquota** reads the temporary file and modifies the binary quota files to reflect the changes made. The binary quota file, *.quota.user* is stored at the root of the filesystem. The default filename and root location for the user quotas cannot be overridden.

If the  **-p** flag is specified, **edquota** will duplicate the quotas of the prototypical user specified for each user specified. This is the normal mechanism used to initialize quotas for groups of users.

If the  **-g** flag is specified, **edquota** is invoked to edit the quotas of one or more groups specified on the command line. The list of filesystems with group quotas is determined by scanning the mounted filesystems for a *.quota.ops.group* file located at its root. Similarly, the binary quota file, *.quota.group* is stored at the root of the filesystem. The default filename and root location for group quotas cannot be overridden. The  **-p** flag can be specified in conjunction with the  **-g** flag to specify a prototypical group to be duplicated among the listed set of groups.

Users are permitted to exceed their soft limits for a grace period that may be specified per filesystem. Once the grace period has expired, the soft limit is enforced as a hard limit. The default grace period for a filesystem is specified in */usr/include/sys/quota.h*. The  **-t** flag can be used to change the grace period. By default, or when invoked with the  **-u** flag, the grace period is set for each filesystem with a *.quota.ops.user* file located at its root. When invoked with the  **-g** flag, the grace period is set for each filesystem with a *.quota.ops.group* file located at its root. The grace period may be specified in days, hours, minutes, or seconds. Setting a grace period to zero indicates that the default grace period should be imposed. Setting a grace period to one second indicates that no grace period should be granted.

Only the super-user may edit quotas.

## FILES

Each of the following quota files is located at the root of the mounted filesystem.  The mount option files are empty files whose existence indicates that quotas are to be enabled for that filesystem.  The binary data files will be created by edquota, if they don't already exist.

- *.quota.user*

  data file containing user quotas

- *.quota.group*

  data file containing group quotas

- *.quota.ops.user*

  mount option file used to enable user quotas

- *.quota.ops.group*

  mount option file used to enable group quotas

## SEE ALSO

[quota(1)](/quota/1.md), [quotactl(2)](/quotactl/2.md), [quotacheck(8)](/quotacheck/8.md), [quotaon(8)](/quotaon/8.md), [repquota(8)](/repquota/8.md)

## DIAGNOSTICS

Various messages about inaccessible files; self-explanatory.