Mac OS X – Show / Hide Hidden Files in Finder

136 Responses to “ “Mac OS X – Show / Hide Hidden Files in Finder”

1. Paul Archer says:

   October 7, 2011 at 8:05 am

   Many, many thanks. Very useful to know
2. sgscott says:

   October 10, 2011 at 4:29 pm

   Great app. Thank you very much.

   Scotty
3. JP says:

   October 13, 2011 at 12:39 am

   Great post man!! Many thanks!!
4. Drillsetc says:

   October 17, 2011 at 5:33 pm

   Thanks for the excellent post. It was just what I was looking for.
5. Rameshwar says:

   October 24, 2011 at 8:19 am

   I got it what i want.
   Thanks.
6. kenny says:

   October 24, 2011 at 9:19 am

   Very helpful, thanks!
7. Chriskemm says:

   October 24, 2011 at 12:44 pm

   Cheers!
8. vol7ron says:

   October 28, 2011 at 11:06 am

   Many years later, new to OS X, thanks for showing this. I have a feeling I’m going to forget too (especially if I need to do it on a fresh install or someone else’s machine) so I’m going to make a “OSX tweaks” folder.
9. Kit says:

   November 3, 2011 at 5:30 am

   Thanks. =)
10. Ty says:

    November 8, 2011 at 12:40 pm

    That little toggle app is awesome, just what I was hoping to find. Thanks!
11. kRemtronicz says:

    November 10, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    Awesome: just what I needed. New to Mac; learning new stuff. ;O)
12. stereoform says:

    November 11, 2011 at 7:16 am

    hi,

    i tried automator application but unfortunately don’t know how to hide hidden folders again. :(
13. Travis says:

    November 17, 2011 at 10:50 pm

    Thanks a million for this post. New to Mac’s and more than a little miffed to be honest
14. hunksomestranger says:

    November 19, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    That was very helpful! I was neophyte in MAC OS X and I don’t know much of it. Thanks for this, I truly appreciate it.
15. Michael Douma says:

    November 27, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Also, you can adjust visibility of individual files with:
    chflags nohidden filenamehere
    or for all the files, recursively, in the current directory:
    chflags -R nohidden *
16. ratih says:

    December 14, 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Danke!
17. Dan T says:

    December 15, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    Thank you! Usefull post!
18. Mac – Show Hidden Files in Finder | Eureka! says:

    December 18, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    [...] Mac OS X – Show / Hide Hidden Files in Finder LD_AddCustomAttr("AdOpt", "1"); LD_AddCustomAttr("Origin", "other"); LD_AddCustomAttr("LangId", [...]
19. Mac – Show Hidden Files in Finder | Eureka! says:

    December 18, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    [...] Mac OS X – Show / Hide Hidden Files in Finder LD_AddCustomAttr("AdOpt", "1"); LD_AddCustomAttr("Origin", "other"); LD_AddCustomAttr("LangId", [...]
20. MacLover says:

    December 22, 2011 at 7:08 am

    Hi,
    When I tried to hide,
    the terminal shows,
    ‘Could not write domain /Users/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist; exiting’
21. Tino Cordes says:

    December 24, 2011 at 11:10 am

    Thanks! I never seem to be able to remember what to write in Terminal :-)
22. keith bierman says:

    December 28, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    Nice post, good to jog the memory. But trying your toggle script, it was misfiring, so adding some “echo” lines, I see that isVisible is printing ” ÓTRUEÓ” which never matches … is this a Mac misfeature I’ve forgotten or ??

    Thanks in advance!
23. EmmaT says:

    January 8, 2012 at 4:32 pm

    Thank you!
24. Daniel Costa says:

    January 12, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    Thank you!!!!
25. Khaled says:

    January 31, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    Thanks. :)
26. Raffaele says:

    February 12, 2012 at 3:15 am

    Thank you for the automator script: I’d never remember that command line syntax!
27. emre ozdemir says:

    February 20, 2012 at 4:26 am

    thanks a lot.
28. Freelancer SEO says:

    February 23, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    After i install success Mac, my Partion is hidden. How to show ?
29. Anonymous says:

    March 26, 2012 at 8:14 am

    This is really helpful! thanks!! :)
30. Lotte says:

    April 1, 2012 at 7:15 am

    Thank you so much… this was very helpful :)
31. Display Hidden Files in Mac OS X « Eager to Code, Enjoy to Debug ~ Embark into Each Stage with Your Heart says:

    April 12, 2012 at 9:40 am

    [...] it seems hidden files are not shown in Mac OS X. This blog is really good as a reference: http://www.brooksandrus.com/blog/2007/03/23/mac-os-x-show-hide-hidden-files-in-finder/. I found this command is useful for me to show the hidden files in Mac OS [...]
32. Alexis says:

    April 21, 2012 at 8:47 pm

    Thank you!!!
33. Thangavel says:

    April 30, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    Woow… Its nice commands.. thanks a ton…
34. Anonymous says:

    May 6, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    The shell script given is either wrong or not working in my version of MacOS lion.

    I edited the script and now it works for me… the edited script is as follows:

    #!/bin/sh
    # check if hidden files are visible and store result in a variable
    isVisible=$(defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles)

    # toggle visibility based on variables value
    if [ $isVisible = TRUE ]
    then
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
    else
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
    fi

    # force changes by restarting Finder
    killall Finder

    I changed the IF statement logic around for testing purposes. It does not really matter what order it is.
35. SONA says:

    May 7, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    Thanks man! saved my day
36. Augustin says:

    May 9, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    Awesome! Thanks, dude!