Enter your Mac's administration password if required, then hit return.In Terminal, paste the following: sudo nano ~/.bash_profile.As we want this to be a shortcut used now and in the future, let's make it permanent: Using an easy to remember alias, we can turn the above four step process into just one.Īn alias can be made temporarily (just for the use of one terminal session) or permanently. Show/Hide Hidden Files using Terminal AliasesĪ Terminal alias is a name or shortcut for one or multiple commands. It's not the longest set of instructions or the biggest command to commit to memory but if you're doing this a lot, it's worth spending a few minutes now to save yourself a lot more time in the future. To hide them again, follow the same steps but replace the Terminal command with: defaults write AppleShowAllFiles NO Relaunch Finder by right clicking the Finder Icon whilst holding the `option/alt` key Hold the 'Option/alt' key, then right click on the Finder icon in the dock and click Relaunch.In Terminal, paste the following: defaults write AppleShowAllFiles YES.Open Terminal found in Finder > Applications > Utilities.The long way to show hidden Mac OS X files is as follows: Thanks to Guido Schlabitz for making me aware of this new shortcut. If you're using a version earlier than macOS Sierra, see Show/Hide Hidden Files using Terminal Aliases to setup a toggle command via terminal. Press once to show hidden files and again to hide them. Since the release of macOS Sierra, when in Finder, it is now possible to use the shortcut: CMD + SHIFT +. The Quickest Way to Show/Hide Hidden Files All I need do now is type showFiles and hideFiles whenever I need to show/hide OS X's hidden files. Today I decided to make a short and easy to remember alias to speed up the process. If you want to hide files and folders again on a machine running OS X 10.8 and earlier, simply enter the following command in the Terminal app and hit the return/enter key:ĭefaults write seems like every day I search Google for the command to show hidden files on Mac OS X, not to mention Googling for the command to then hide those hidden files a few minutes later. If you use OS X 10.8 and earlier, use this command line in the Terminal window:ĭefaults write AppleShowAllFiles TRUE killall Finder Hide hidden files on OS X 10.8 and prior Copy/paste or type in the following command and hit the return key:ĭefaults write AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false killall FinderĪll hidden files that you have revealed should now be hidden again.This works with OS X Mavericks and later, including macOS Ventura: You should now see hidden files and folders in Finder.įollow these steps if you want to hide the files and folders you previously revealed. Copy/paste or type in the following command and hit the return/enter key:ĭefaults write AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true killall Finder.Using Terminalįollow these steps to show hidden files in Finder if you use one of the recent versions of OS X or macOS: Pressing the same keys again will hide those hidden files and folders. Press together the Command + Shift + Period/Full Stop (.) keys to unhide files and folders.There are a couple of easy ways to do that. That said, if you know what you’re doing, here’s how to access them. In this post, I will show you how to show hidden files and folders in Finder on your Mac.Ĭaution: While it’s very easy to see hidden files and folders, you must edit or delete them with caution as the operating system may need these system files, and thus they are generally hidden so that you don’t accidentally modify them. But I understand some people out there have the desire to see all those system files and folders, for whatever reason that may be. These days, I’m quite the opposite, as I like to see as little files and folders as possible on my Mac. I’m not sure why, but I liked it this way. I would always make sure that Windows Explorer would show all hidden files and folders. Admittedly, I was one of these people many moons ago when I was a Windows user. Some people like to know everything that is on their computer. In this guide, you’ll learn how to easily show hidden files and folders on your Mac using a quick keyboard shortcut or simple Terminal commands. By default, Mac computers hide some files and folders to prevent users from accidentally deleting or modifying critical files, but sometimes you may need to access them.

Unhide folder in mac