For those who in hurry download Hider 2 app (it's free for download) the app will help you to hide and unhide files and folders on your Mac easily. All other, let’s start! How to Hide Files on Mac using Terminal. Let's see what ways the Mac OS offers us. They are completely free and quite effective. The Show All Files application also provides a minimalist interface that allows you to toggle the files visibility with the press of a button. Enables one to create custom lists of files that should stay hidden. The top Show All Files buttons will quickly show or hide the files that are.
All computer systems, including macOS, contain hidden files and folders. Your Mac hides some files and folders by default. Your Mac is configured to not display hidden files. In general, you should not touch, move or edit these hidden files. These are important system-related files and folders and they perform some essential and sometimes critical functions. macOS stores system settings in hidden files and folders. They are hidden to prevent you from accidentally deleting, moving around or modifying these important files.
You may sometimes need to see hidden files for various reasons. For example, sometimes, some of our articles suggest deleting preference files (these are usually hidden files) by accessing the hidden Library folder as a troubleshooting tip. It may be necessary to access them to fix a Mac problem that you may be experiencing.
See also: Mac Displaying Wrong, Generic Document Icons For Files & Folders, Fix
This article explains how you can display and hide hidden files and folders, including the Library folder, on your Mac.
Important: Viewing these hidden files and folders is a simple process. However, if you do not know what you are doing precisely, do not touch these files.
Show/Hide Hidden Files – The Shortcut
This is the easiest way to reveal hidden files and folders. Here is how:
- Open an active Finder window
- And press these keys together: Shift, Command (⌘), and period symbol (.)
- Pressing these keys will reveal the files
- If you want to hide them, press again to hide them.
Show/Hide Hidden Files – Terminal
The above shortcut method will not work for the Desktop. The terminal method below will reveal all the hidden files on your Mac:
- Open the Terminal app on your Mac (Applications > Utilities). Or use Spotlight to search and open the app.
- In Terminal, enter the following command and hit enter:
For this new change to take effect, we will need to relaunch Finder. Here is how (you can also use the Terminal method which is explained below):
- Press and hold the Option key
- Right-click the Finder icon in the Dock while holding down the Option key
- Click Relaunch
Now, you will see all of your hidden files. To hide them again, open Terminal and enter the following command and hit enter:
You will again need to relaunch Finder after this. You can restart Finder by following the steps that we explained above, or you can use the Terminal app. Here is how:
Show Hidden Files Mac Shortcut
- Open Terminal
- Enter the following command and hit enter
How to access the hidden Library folder
The library folder contains user account settings, preference files, and other important data. This folder is hidden by default. There are two ways to access this folder. You may choose one to reveal this folder:
Method 1:
- Go to Finder
- Press and hold the Option key
- While pressing the Option key, click Go from the menu bar
- Click Library from the drop-down menu
Method 2:
- Go to Finder
- Click Go and Go to Folder
- This will open a dialogue box, type ~/Library
- Click Go
![Downloads Downloads](https://dl1.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/03/09/3039e7d1ffa0a0e79133dfedb9f1ed0a09b_1Show_Hidden_Files_Mac_Screenshot.png)
See also: AMPDevicesAgent? What Is It?
Jul 06,2020 • Filed to: Mac Recovery • Proven solutions
“How to view hidden files on Mac? I accidentally made some files hidden on Mac, but now I can’t seem to access them at all!”
This is one of the common queries of both Mac and Windows users these days. Just like any other operating system, Mac also allows us to hide files and folders for our privacy. Though, after doing that, users can’t seem to show hidden files on Mac. There are times when they wish to see files on Mac of certain applications or saved components (like cache or temp files) that are hidden. No matter what your requirements are – you can easily learn how to find hidden files on Mac after reading this guide. Not one, but 5 simple and stepwise solutions are listed to show hidden files on Mac right here.
Part 1: What are Hidden Files on Mac?
As the name suggests, hidden files or folders on Mac won’t be shown by default on the Finder. Nevertheless, they would occupy space on your Mac storage. By default, users are not able to view hidden files on Mac. Though, you can take some extra measures to find them. A user can hide any file or folder that they wish to. Mac itself also hides tons of files like cache, hidden application component, background backup files, preferences, log files, system files, and so on. Most of these files are important for macOS, but are not needed by the user to access frequently.
Part 2: Where are Hidden Files Located on Mac?
Ideally, hidden folders can be located anywhere on Mac. Most of them are present on the macOS directory where logs, preferences, cache, and other system files are stored. Additionally, they are present in the app folder to store temporary data. Users can also hide any file or folder of their choice and thus, it can be present anywhere on your system. Since they would be hidden, you can’t see them the usual way while browsing your Mac’s directory.
Part 3: How to Show Hidden Files on Mac?
You might already know that Mac has a user-friendly interface and file system. There are native as well as third-party solutions to see hidden files on Mac. Here are some of the common solutions on how to view hidden files and folders on Mac.
Method 1: Use Finder
If the hidden files and folders are already visible on Mac, then you can simply access them via Finder. Just open the Finder window that way you like and browse the file system. You can find shortcuts on the left to explore and view the stored files on the right. This will display all the hidden files and folders on your Mac. You can also take the assistance of a Spotlight search to look for any specific file as well.
Method 2: Find Hidden Folders in the Library
In case if the files and folders are hidden on Mac, then you can view them with this approach. Though, it will only work to view hidden files on Mac stored in the Library folder. All you got to do is hold the Alt (Option) key on your Mac keyboard and go to the Finder menu on the top. Click on Go > Library from here to open the Library folder and show all files on Mac stored in its ~/Library.
Method 3: Use Terminal
The Terminal gives a hassle-free solution to enter the needed commands to macOS. In this way, users can alter their system settings bypassing the existing commands and parameters. Though, you should be cautious while working with Terminal as a wrong command can make some drastic changes in Mac. You can access Terminal directly from the Spotlight or go to Finder > Applications > Utility to open the app on Mac.
Once Terminal is launched, enter the following command:
![Show Hide Hidden Files Mac App Show Hide Hidden Files Mac App](/uploads/1/2/6/1/126119967/878277461.jpg)
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true; killall Finder
This will provide a permanent solution to show hidden files on Mac. Now, whenever you would launch Finder, you can see the hidden files and folders on it without any trouble. In order to hide them again, you can type the same command and change the Boolean expression from “true” to “false”.
Method 4: Use the Shortcut 'CMD + Shift +'.
If you are looking for a fast and temporary solution to view hidden files on Mac, then consider these keyboard shortcuts. Access the Finder menu and click on “Go” to visit your computer or any other folder. Now, press the Command + Shift + . (Period) keys at the same time. This will show the hidden files and folders on Mac instantly. Just press the keyboard shortcuts again to hide these files.
Method 5: Recover/Show/View Hidden Files with Mac Data Recovery Software [Recommended]
If you don’t want to go through any unwanted hassle to show all files on Mac, then consider using Recoverit (IS) for Mac. Ideally, it is a complete data recovery application that can retrieve all kinds of lost or inaccessible content on Mac. As a result, it will automatically show the hidden files on Mac storage as well. You can view these files and recover them to any location of your choice. Yes – it is as simple as that. All you need to do is follow a quick click-through process to recover hidden files from Mac.
Delete Hidden Files On Mac
Recoverit (IS) for Mac
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
- The application supports more than 1000 different file formats for photos, videos, audios, documents, compressed files, and more. You can recover all kinds of files, irrespective of their extensions.
- You can view hidden files not only from Mac’s internal hard drive, but also from external sources. This includes SD cards, USB drives, hard disks, MP3 cameras, and so on.
- The interface will let you preview the recovered data and selectively save it to any other location of your choice.
- You can even get your data back from a lost partition, accidentally deleted content, corrupt files, and every other kind of inaccessible content.
- The application is available for free (the basic version) and supports every leading macOS version, including the macOS 10.15 release.
3,015,629 people have downloaded it
Here’s how you can take the assistance of Recoverit (IS) and learn how to view hidden files on Mac.
Step 1 Install and launch the program
Download, install and launch the data recovery application on your Mac.
Step 2 Pick a location to scan
Furthermore, you need to select a location where you wish to extract the hidden files and folders. This can be any partition or the entire Mac hard drive. You can connect an external device and select it from here as well.
Step 3 Scan and Find Hiden Files
After you've picked a location to scan, click on the 'Start' button to complete the scanning process. Here you can easily halt the process in between or see the progress from an on-screen indicator.
Show Hide Hidden Files Mac App Download
To save time, you can use inbuilt filters within the application to narrow the search on the basis of different factors, so that you can let the application find your target hidden files quickly.
Show Hide Hidden Files Mac App Downloads
Step 4 Preview and save hidden files
Just wait for a few minutes as Recoverit (IS) application will scan the selected location and extract all files from Mac. In the end, it will display the results under different categories. You can visit any category from the left panel and preview the file on the right. To look for a specific file, you can use its search option as well. Make the needed selections and click on the “Recover” button to save them to a trusted location in the end.
Now when you know five different ways to show hidden files and folders on Mac, you can easily try the preferred solution. Though, if you use Recoverit (IS), then you can also get back the lost or deleted content from your Mac. In today’s world, it is important to keep a recovery tool handy. Since you might encounter an unexpected loss of data on Mac, the application will make sure that you get your deleted files back in no time.