diff --git a/base/file.jl b/base/file.jl
index 30eb9696de249..c663765bc25ee 100644
--- a/base/file.jl
+++ b/base/file.jl
@@ -515,7 +515,7 @@ function sendfile(src::AbstractString, dst::AbstractString)
         src_file = open(src, JL_O_RDONLY)
         src_open = true
         dst_file = open(dst, JL_O_CREAT | JL_O_TRUNC | JL_O_WRONLY,
-             S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IWGRP| S_IROTH | S_IWOTH)
+             S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IWGRP | S_IROTH | S_IWOTH)
         dst_open = true
 
         bytes = filesize(stat(src_file))
@@ -527,6 +527,8 @@ function sendfile(src::AbstractString, dst::AbstractString)
         if dst_open && isopen(dst_file)
             close(dst_file)
         end
+        # preserve permissions by default (issue #20925)
+        chmod(dst, filemode(src))
     end
 end
 
diff --git a/test/file.jl b/test/file.jl
index ca1429605cd25..86df0d4ae92d2 100644
--- a/test/file.jl
+++ b/test/file.jl
@@ -80,8 +80,19 @@ if is_windows()
 else
     mktempdir() do tmpdir
         tmpfile=joinpath(tmpdir, "tempfile.txt")
+        tmpfile2=joinpath(tmpdir, "tempfile2.txt")
         touch(tmpfile)
+        cp(tmpfile, tmpfile2)
+        @test filemode(tmpfile) == filemode(tmpfile2)
+        rm(tmpfile2)
+        chmod(tmpfile, 0o777)
+        cp(tmpfile, tmpfile2)
+        @test filemode(tmpfile) == filemode(tmpfile2)
+        rm(tmpfile2)
         chmod(tmpfile, 0o707)
+        cp(tmpfile, tmpfile2)
+        @test filemode(tmpfile) == filemode(tmpfile2)
+        rm(tmpfile2)
         linkfile=joinpath(dir, "tempfile.txt")
         symlink(tmpfile, linkfile)
         permissions=0o776