One of my few complaints about MacOS X is that at times I feel like it treats you with kids gloves– many options for power users either require some sort of hacking, or simply don’t exist. One such thing which is fixable is getting Finder to show hidden files. It’s a quick and easy process via the command line to fix this:
tobin:~ brandon$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE tobin:~ brandon$ killall Finder
Now you can actually see all of the directories which start with periods, etc. Enjoy!
By Rob Wilkerson August 13, 2007 - 10:47 am
This is really handy when you create it as a shell script, wrap it an Automator plugin for Finder and can then access it from the context menu.
I found I needed it most when I was already in Finder and the effort to open a terminal window and do the typing wasn’t conducive to my desire to…not do either of those things.
Now I can right click, access the Automator submenu and select “Show Hidden Files” (the name I gave to the plugin). To invert, I select my “Hide Hidden Files” plugin.
By Sam Farmer August 13, 2007 - 12:40 pm
Cool. I’ve wanted to know how to do that for a while. However, my finder icons, like a folder, now have a washed out look to them.
By Brandon Harper August 13, 2007 - 12:55 pm
Sam,
Strange, that certainly didn’t happen for me. In fact I just rebooted and it still looks the same. If it bothers you more than having hidden files, you could always revert it by doing the following commands:
tobin:~ brandon$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
tobin:~ brandon$ killall Finder
By pan69 August 13, 2007 - 6:19 pm
I’m also getting the “washed” icon look. Undoing will bring them back to their normal state.
Its odd that this kind of functionality isn’t standard included in OSX. I’ve been working on OSX for about eight weeks now (due to work) and I definitely do not like the GUI of this OS. “I feel like it treats you with kids gloves” to me it feels more like I’m being treated like an idiot. Finder is definitely the most horrible piece of **** ever conceived. To me it seems like Apple only comes up with functionality to be “different” then the “others” instead of creating a great user experience.
I’ve worked on Windows and Linux desktops for years and even a Linux/Gnome desktop gives me a better user experience then OSX and the reason for this is that I’m free to adjust anything I want. Even Windows gives me more freedom than OSX. With OSX I constantly have the feeling that I’m forced into some else’s personal preferences. All in all, OSX should go straight into the bin…
By Joseph Lamoree August 14, 2007 - 10:10 am
You might find PathFinder useful. It’s a very good replacement for Finder. Among the slew of features it offers, the ability to toggle the visibility of various types of files is much more convenient than using the global default.
By Brandon Harper August 14, 2007 - 5:04 pm
@Joseph
Yeah, I have PathFinder myself, though just a trial. I get tired of getting nickled and dimed to death for little apps to fix problems that should be part of the OS, so I’ve pretty much refused to buy it.
By Aaron West August 15, 2007 - 7:54 am
Hey guys, I also wrote a little OS X code to allow you to toggle between showing hidden files and not. If you access the following blog post you’ll get instructions on downloading my script and adding it to the Scripts menu so you can toggle hidden files view any time you want. It was built pre-Automater, but works well nonetheless.
http://www.trajiklyhip.com/blo.....les-on-Mac
By pan69 August 20, 2007 - 12:34 am
Since we’re on the topic of hidden files, does anyone know how to get rid of those annoying hidden .DS_Store files?
By Brandon Harper August 20, 2007 - 3:00 pm
@pan69
Just created an entry just for you:
http://devnulled.com/content/2.....ore-files/
By Glenn October 28, 2007 - 1:23 pm
FYI. The ‘defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE’ tip no longer works in OS X Leopard (10.5). I have not yet found a workaround.
By menneke November 17, 2007 - 9:41 am
@ Glenn
It still works for me in 10.5.1. The invisible files and folder icons now have this washed out look, the others look normal (more or less like in Windows I believe).
By arif December 6, 2007 - 11:19 pm
@ Glenn
it’s probably not working b/c the code you posted enables default behaviour ie. don’t show hidden files
change the FALSE to TRUE in the snippet you posted and you’ll be fine
By Stefan December 7, 2007 - 6:22 pm
well, this enables to see *several* hidden files in Finder.
however, I still can’t see my .bashrc file in my home and some other dot-files (like the .profile file or the .ssh folder).
anyone any idea how I can make those visible in Finder? (I’m on 10.5.1)
thx & greetings from Germany,
Stefan.
By Tim January 7, 2008 - 10:47 pm
Another question about hidden files: Does anyone know if I can delete files in a hidden folder called “.Trash”? I have 4.5GB of files in this folder and they’re things I thought I deleted about two weeks ago.
By » How To Stop The Creation of .DS_Store Files : devnulled: A stream for software developers and engineers January 31, 2008 - 12:00 am
[...] At the request of a reader, I went ahead and researched what .DS_Store Files are, and how prevent MacOS X from creating them. In a nutshell, .DS_Store files are created by Finder to store preferences: .DS_Store (Desktop Services Store) is a hidden file created by Apple Inc’s Mac OS X operating system to store custom attributes of a folder such as the position of icons or the choice of a background image. By default, Mac OS X will create a .DS_Store file in every folder that it accesses, even folders on remote systems (for example, folders shared over a SMB or AFP connection) and even if the user has only customized the appearance of the folder by moving its Finder window. This is in contrast to the preexisting system for the same purpose used in previous versions of the Macintosh Finder, which would merely place a number of invisible files at the root of the volume being accessed (even on alien filesystems), always storing the settings and metadata for all of the folders in the entire volume within this single set of files. [...]
By Pac Mac April 28, 2008 - 9:28 pm
Thanks for the Info…
By Anuj Gakhar May 16, 2008 - 3:28 pm
I am a new MAC switcher from Windows and its really annoying that I cant have hidden files visible without spending money on some add-on software. I just want to open apache conf files and edit them and want to be able to browse to them in Finder. I could probably do this in some text editor but thats another story…no free text editor as well…atleast not to my knowledge. But obviously this should be part of the OS like others said.
By Joel Godin August 8, 2008 - 2:09 pm
You came up on Google number 2 for the search “how to see hidden files mac” fyi
By greg December 30, 2008 - 10:01 pm
this is awesome, thanks!
By ionrepublic January 4, 2009 - 5:17 am
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
It works, I’m on 10.5.6. I had to do it two or three times before it took, but it works great.
By Michael February 1, 2009 - 9:50 am
For me it only works if I am not root. Thanks!
By Carlos March 2, 2009 - 9:57 am
Just thanks a lot for your tip!!! It helps tons for me
By Peter March 26, 2009 - 6:26 am
Thanks, greatly appreciated.
(how about using openid for posting comments?)
By Paul April 30, 2009 - 3:09 am
Thanks. This is nice, but I’ve been looking for something slightly different but can’t seem to find anything: I’d like to be able to select a folder and have a script/app/whatever toggle the visibility bit of any invisible file WITHIN that folder. Any suggestions? Thanks. -
By olli May 2, 2009 - 2:47 pm
basically you CAN undo this by
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
And I AM in Leopard 10.5.6 …
I don’t know why somebody wrote anything else here, but it should work. It did also work from the first attempt, but you don’t need to forget to give the command
killal Finder
to get it back
By Dave B. August 21, 2009 - 11:53 am
Thanks so very much bro.
What a relief. Tot I was gonna loose my files forever.
Praise the Lord!
God bless you from Indonesia!
By Dave B. August 21, 2009 - 11:58 am
Where are the files from the emptied Trash folder?
I need to retrieve them without using software such as Stellar Phoenix which cost a fortune..
Please help guys. Thanks.
By dave B. August 21, 2009 - 12:00 pm
Please kindly email solution to me via:
[email protected]
Many thanks..
By neuralstatic February 26, 2010 - 10:18 am
ancient history now, but washed out icons = invisible files ghosted out.
By Jeramy June 25, 2010 - 9:32 am
I am on 10.5.8 and it does not seem to work. I have tried it a couple times and it throws no errors, but does not make my hidden backup directory visible. I know it is there because I can access it command line but it is not showing in finder.
By Jeramy June 25, 2010 - 9:46 am
I honestly don’t know what the difference is but I got this to work with a slight variation to the command I found on another page that read: “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true”
I am not sure why, but when I used this one it worked.
By Berend March 9, 2011 - 8:43 am
This works fine on 10.6.6 still. But the browse-to dialogs do not obey this setting. Both in Google Chrome and Moz Firefox I cannot find a setting to display hidden files while e.g. selecting a file for upload.
If anyone has a solution I’d sure like to know.