diff --git a/archivebox/config.py b/archivebox/config.py
index 32b90609..17b9960c 100644
--- a/archivebox/config.py
+++ b/archivebox/config.py
@@ -337,6 +337,7 @@ DYNAMIC_CONFIG_SCHEMA: ConfigDefaultDict = {
     'COOKIES_FILE':             {'default': lambda c: c['COOKIES_FILE'] and Path(c['COOKIES_FILE']).resolve()},
     'CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR':     {'default': lambda c: find_chrome_data_dir() if c['CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR'] is None else (Path(c['CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR']).resolve() if c['CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR'] else None)},   # None means unset, so we autodetect it with find_chrome_Data_dir(), but emptystring '' means user manually set it to '', and we should store it as None
     'URL_BLACKLIST_PTN':        {'default': lambda c: c['URL_BLACKLIST'] and re.compile(c['URL_BLACKLIST'] or '', re.IGNORECASE | re.UNICODE | re.MULTILINE)},
+    'DIR_OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS':   {'default': lambda c: c['OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS'].replace('6', '7').replace('4', '5')},
 
     'ARCHIVEBOX_BINARY':        {'default': lambda c: sys.argv[0] or bin_path('archivebox')},
     'VERSION':                  {'default': lambda c: json.loads((Path(c['PACKAGE_DIR']) / 'package.json').read_text(encoding='utf-8').strip())['version']},
@@ -967,7 +968,7 @@ globals().update(CONFIG)
 
 # Set timezone to UTC and umask to OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS
 os.environ["TZ"] = 'UTC'
-os.umask(0o777 - int(OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, base=8))  # noqa: F821
+os.umask(0o777 - int(DIR_OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, base=8))  # noqa: F821
 
 # add ./node_modules/.bin to $PATH so we can use node scripts in extractors
 NODE_BIN_PATH = str((Path(CONFIG["OUTPUT_DIR"]).absolute() / 'node_modules' / '.bin'))
diff --git a/archivebox/system.py b/archivebox/system.py
index 09066fcf..347698f8 100644
--- a/archivebox/system.py
+++ b/archivebox/system.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ from crontab import CronTab
 from .vendor.atomicwrites import atomic_write as lib_atomic_write
 
 from .util import enforce_types, ExtendedEncoder
-from .config import PYTHON_BINARY, OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, ENFORCE_ATOMIC_WRITES
+from .config import PYTHON_BINARY, OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, DIR_OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, ENFORCE_ATOMIC_WRITES
 
 
 
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ def atomic_write(path: Union[Path, str], contents: Union[dict, str, bytes], over
     os.chmod(path, int(permissions, base=8))
 
 @enforce_types
-def chmod_file(path: str, cwd: str='.', permissions: str=OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS) -> None:
+def chmod_file(path: str, cwd: str='.') -> None:
     """chmod -R <permissions> <cwd>/<path>"""
 
     root = Path(cwd) / path
@@ -123,10 +123,9 @@ def chmod_file(path: str, cwd: str='.', permissions: str=OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS) ->
         for subpath in Path(path).glob('**/*'):
             if subpath.is_dir():
                 # directories need execute permissions to be able to list contents
-                perms_with_x_allowed = permissions.replace('4', '5').replace('6', '7')
-                os.chmod(subpath, int(perms_with_x_allowed, base=8))
+                os.chmod(subpath, int(DIR_OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, base=8))
             else:
-                os.chmod(subpath, int(permissions, base=8))
+                os.chmod(subpath, int(OUTPUT_PERMISSIONS, base=8))
 
 
 @enforce_types