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Aug 14, 2019  On a further note, the above command both shows the hidden files and refreshes the Finder so hidden file appears. Show/Hide Hidden Files on Mac using Terminal Aliases. A Terminal alias is a name or shortcut for one or multiple commands. Using an easy to remember alias, We can turn the above four step process into just one. The easiest way to show hidden files is to use the free Funterapplication. Funter allows you to find, hide and search for hidden files on your Mac in just a few clicks. Follow these steps to see hidden files on Mac: Launch Funter to manage hidden files.

Are you among the many Mac users who depend on Spotlight when searching for folders and files? Then you are not alone. It is understandable because the tool is convenient to use. In fact, it is a good and reliable assistant when sorting disorganized data. However, did you know that your Mac has hundreds or thousands of useless hidden files that Spotlight cannot see and are taking up too much of your disk space? Well, we have solutions that can help you show hidden files on mac but before we give out help, allow us to discuss a few important things.

The Hidden Files on Mac and the Reason Why They Are Hidden

Files that are preceded by a “.” are not always visible in a normal file list. Also, folders like /bin, /etc/, and /usr are hidden away. By default, macOS hides all critical system folders and files. Others are kept out of view because they may be too confusing to understand for typical Mac users.

Now, no matter how familiar you are with your Mac, there are instances when you cause data loss or damage if you mess up with these files. You can either accidentally change them or worse, delete them, resulting in a catastrophic system-wide issue. That is obviously the reason they are hidden away.

Use Terminal to Show All Files on Mac

The first solution involves using the Terminal to show hidden files on your Mac.

1. Launch Terminal. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
2. Once it is launched, type in the command defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true.
3. On your keyboard, press
4. Relaunch Terminal by typing killall Finder. Now, you can view all hidden files.
5. If you wish to hide the files again, simply type in the Terminal Window this command: defaults write apple.FinderAppleShowAllFiles false.
6. Now, press
7. Finally, relaunch Finder by typing the command killall Finder.

Show Hidden Files Using Show Hidden Files App

Here is an easy way to view hidden files on Mac. Use the Show Hidden Files application. This app makes searching hidden files as easy as possible. You can even delete any useless hidden data with just one click!

1. Download Show Hidden Files app from the Mac App Store.
2. Install and launch the app.
3. In the search field, input the file or folder name. For example, you can type in “cache”.
4. A list of hidden files and folders will be shown to you. Select one item and then click the Show in Finder button or the arrow sign.
5. The file or folder will then be shown in the
6. From there, you can manage and view the hidden files.
7. Once you close or relaunch Finder, the hidden file or folder will become invisible again.

Use the Show Hidden Files App and a Special Script

There is another way to use the Show Hidden Files app to view the hidden files you have on Mac. Use a special script! Follow the steps below:

1. Download Show Hidden Files app from the Mac App Store. If you already have it, then proceed to step 3.
2. Install the app.
3. Download the following archives and unpack them:
   • HideHiddensAndRelaunchFinder
   • ShowHiddensAndRelaunchFinder
4. Go to Finder and go to this directory: ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.nektony.FindFiles. To do this, open the Finder window ->Go -> Go to Folder. Type ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.nektony.FindFiles.
5. Move the archives you downloaded and unpacked in step 3 to the com/nektony.FindFiles Be sure you don’t change the file names of the scripts.
6. Relaunch the Show Hidden Files There should be a new option in its window. Click on the Grant Access button to confirm and verify access to the Home folder.
7. Once you have successfully followed the steps, you can already enable or disable the feature to show or hide hidden files and folders.
8. To enable or disable the visibility of files, you just have to use the Switch

Summary

It is important to understand that there are many hidden files and folders in your Mac’s system. While some of them play an integral role, others only eat up your Mac’s memory space. Even so, you should not modify or delete them unless you are completely aware and certain of their roles. After all, you can’t afford to mess up with the system.

In addition, some of the methods may require a bit of manual labor and a little of your time. But if you are not that confident with your technical skills, we suggest you install Tweakbit MacRepair first. If things seem too confusing, seek assistance from Apple experts. Take your Mac to the nearest iStore and ask an Apple genius to show the hidden files for you.

Changing the visibility of the user’s files and folders to make it invisible might be because of personal or security reasons. However, doing the same for the macOS requires some technical expertise. Usually, macOS comes with features that help to hide files on Mac devices just like any other operating system. But accessing those options is quite a tricky job in macOS when compared to Windows and Linux.

How To Hide Files And Folders Via Terminal

If you want to know how to hide files in macOS, you need to set the “hidden” attribute for it so that the finder and other Mac apps do not display the chosen file or folder by default. Instead of hiding an individual file, you can create a hidden folder. To initiate this, you can first open a terminal window- press Command+Space, then type ‘Terminal’ and at last press Enter.

Once you enter the terminal, type “chflags hidden” command and include a space at the end of it. After you are done with this, drag-and-drop the folder that you want to find from the Finder and put it into the terminal window. This would make the path of the file or folder visible in the terminal.

After you press enter, the file or folder will automatically vanish i.e., it would be hidden, and Finder would not show it by default.

How To Hide Files From Spotlight Search

Although you can make files and folders invisible from Finder, spotlight search finds all files and folders on your Mac device. Therefore, to hide your files from the Spotlight Search, follow these steps: –

• Go to System Preferences
• Then go to Spotlight
• Select Privacy. Here, add the folder that you need to exclude from Spotlight Search.
• Now hide the folder, which includes your important files

Spotlight Search cannot show your hidden files anymore.

‘Secret Folder’ App- Easiest Way To Hide and View Hidden Files On Mac

If you don’t want to hide file and folder with Terminal and want to hide my mac in a straightforward fashion, then it’s better that you use a third-party app. With this, you would be able to hide the files from view and lock them up with the help of a password. Secret Folder app is one such app that can be used to hide all files and can be availed after paying a certain amount. You might find the app a bit pricey, but it provides a great protection for hidden files and folders. In addition to that, it also provides a password-protected vault, which makes use of AES 256-bit encryption that is extremely difficult to break into. The steps to download and use this secret folder mac app are as follows: –

• Download the app and click next until you reach the screen that says create vault.
• Now create a password that you would be using for unlocking the vault and click on the “Create Vault” option.
• After this, you would see a drop-down menu that would appear after you click the button. Here, you can select the secret folder to hide all files.
• Once this is done you can drag and drop the folders and files that you wish to hide and close the app. The password lock would then automatically get activated after this step is taken.
• When you want to access the hidden folders, you can launch secret folder and enter the password to open it. After that, you can double click the file or folder and click on “Unhide All” present at the bottom of the vault to access the files.

Another way to hide files in macOS is that you can store them in the Library and assume it to be hidden. For this, you can hold down the Option key, go to the Library folder, create a new folder in that and just drag all the files and folders that you want to hide in them. Apart from this, another answer to your ‘how to hide folders on mac’ issue is by creating a new user in the System Preferences’ users or the group preference pane and putting the files and folders that need to be hidden in that account.

If you have the “Apple’s Developer Tools” installed in your Macbook, you can use it to hide all files and folder. To use this method, you can go to the Terminal and enter “setfile –a V“along with the name of the folder or file, and this would automatically change the visibility to invisible. In order to undo this option, repeat the same command but now with a lowercase “v.”

Now here are few steps to see hidden files on Mac: –

How To View Hidden Files

In case, you do not know how to see hidden files on mac, you can run the same command (chflags hidden). Just change “hidden” to “nohidden.” If you somehow remember the path of the folder or file, you can type that in the terminal and access it. If not, then you can type “chflags nohidden” to find the folder in Finder and then drag and drop that in the Terminal just like in the previous steps. Instead of this, if you want to go with the easy way for how to show hidden folders, you can also press the up arrow key present at the terminal to go to the previous commands, locate the right one that you want and access the hidden file or folder. You can even use the left arrow key to access the “hidden” part of the command and change it to “nohidden”. Then you can press Enter. Once you are done doing this, the file or the folder would automatically become unhidden and you would be able to browse through it.

Hide Hidden Files Windows 10

If you want to know how to view hidden files in the library, then here are some keyboard shortcuts that you can apply to make it visible.

• Go to the menu and open Finder > Open the Macintosh HD folder by opening the devices option present in the left column. Now hold the Cmd + Shift +. (dot) keys, and you would see that the hidden files would now be visible. To undo this, you can use the same key combination and the files would be hidden.
• As an alternative option, you can open finder, hold down Alt key and choose Go option from the dropdown menu bar present on the top of the screen and you would see the library folder listed down in the Home folder.

• Apart from this, you can even use the following option: Go to the Finder, choose the Go from the menu bar or press Shift + Cmd + G. After this, you can type ~/Library into the text box and click on Go.
• You can also Open Terminal and type the following command at the prompt: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false ; killall Finder to initiate the action.
• When you are considering the Mavericks and Yosemite operating system and if there is a display bug that has hidden files in the Open or Save dialog box, then you need to understand that the keyboards shortcuts for accessing the same would not work in the Finder’s view mode. However, the other views such as cover flow, list, and icon would just work fine if you want to display the hidden files.
• For El Capitan and macOS Sierra, the keyboard shortcuts that are used for showing the hidden files in the Open and Save dialog boxes just work quite well but you need to take care of a little detail along with them as well. There are even times when some of these dialog boxes do not display all the icons for the finder view and hence you need to keep a check on them for accessing the files.
• In case, you want to change a different Finder View, you can do so by clicking the Sidebar icon present in the toolbar on the left. Doing so would enable all the views on the Finder view and you would be able to access all the icons at once.

The role of the command line during the entire process can be divided into two parts: At first, it helps in changing the file settings to show files and secondly, it helps in restarting the finder to show hidden files immediately.

For most of the time, the macOS hidden files and folders are always kept out of view, but during certain times when the files need to stay hidden especially if there is a virus or malware attack which can cause issues in the system files and affect the folders which might no longer work and then you might need to fix them manually to ensure that you can access all the files back. As there can be plethora of hidden files and folders in your MacOS, you can browse through your files in the Finder Window and select the one that you want to access at the moment. Also, you need to take extra care when it comes to the configuration files and do not delete or modify them unless you are sure about their roles.

Show Hide Hidden Files Mac App Downloads

The overall task of accessing hidden file and folder might prove to be bit tedious as you can no longer view them directly in the Finder. However, if you want to show hidden folders on mac quickly, then you can do so by toggling the Finder’s ability to reveal the hidden files rather than making different files visible again. Another important thing that you should remember is that if you accidentally delete a hidden file, you can access back with the help of Disk Drill.