Click the Finder icon at the Mac Dock to open it. Showing hidden files and folders on your Mac with the following steps:
How to show hidden files through a keyboard shortcut?Īctually, a keyboard shortcut is the easiest and the most efficient way of viewing hidden files on Mac computers, because you only need to press some keys on your keyboard. Don't know how to spotlight these invisible files? Don't worry, the following part will go into detail. However, in some cases, you probably want to find hidden files to troubleshoot apps' errors, to find some lost/disappeared files, or to clear cache on Mac by deleting hidden files for more available spaces. Therefore, files that are not used frequently are put out of sight. All the hidden files include preferences, caches, logs, and other service files of the installed apps and the Mac operating system.įor tidiness: Another reason why some files are hidden is that if files on Mac are all visible to you, your computer and the desktop would appear like a mess. It will protect these files from being damaged or deleted by the average Mac user. doesn't let you see hidden files on Mac? Generally speaking, there are two main reasons:įor security: The main reason is that the core system files need to be hidden so that your Mac can run correctly.
Mac OS has always hidden some vital files on the startup disk. Why does Mac OS hide files or folders?Ī hidden file or folder is a file/folder which filesystem utilities do not display by default when showing a directory listing. This article will guide you on how to show hidden files on Mac as well as show hidden folders on Mac. What should you do to make Mac show hidden files or hidden folders?ĭon't worry. Or you want to delete some leftover files after uninstalling apps on Mac, but you can't find them because Mac OS has hidden those files. However, what if you need to show hidden files for some reason? For example, you manually hide some files on your Mac with the "chflags hidden" command, keeping it from accidental deletion, but later you can't find these hidden files anymore. That sets its visibility attribute to invisible you can undo this by repeating the command with a lower-case v.It is reasonable and convenient that macOS keep some files hidden by default.
If you have Apple’s Developer Tools installed, go to Terminal and enter setfile -a V followed by the name of the file or folder. Use innocent-sounding filenames such as Cat videos January 2013- LOL! instead of something more intriguing ( Top secret). In either case, you can again access the hidden folder using the Go To Folder option. hiddenfolder to create a new hidden folder. This moves the original folder to one with a period at the beginning of its name by default, folders with periods at the beginning of their names are hidden in OS X. 5: Make the file/folder hidden 2Īgain in Terminal, type mv filename.
To unhide them, go back to Terminal and type chflags nohidden followed by the file or folder path.
In Terminal, type chflags hidden and then drag a folder or file you want to hide into the Terminal window you can still access those hidden folders and files by summoning the Go To Folder dialog (Command-Shift-G) and typing in their full paths.