Oct 14, 2018 If you do not know what a file’s purpose is, leave it alone. Some files are critical to the proper functioning of your Mac. Apple recently added an easy way to view invisible files. Starting with macOS Sierra (aka macOS 10.12), one can press Command-Shift-Period to view invisible files. The files are made visible but displayed in a lighter color. Jun 08, 2016 Show Hidden Files Mac OS X El Capitan: Click “Finder” icon on your Mac dock. Open Terminal. Terminal is a utility that provides access to the OS X El Capitan operating system. It can be opened in one of two following ways: Select “Applications” on the left side, then on “Utilities“, and double-click on “Terminal“. Advanced Mac users, including developers, often have to enter commands to display hidden files. Show Hidden Files for Mac allows this to be accomplished with the click of a button, although this.
Like Windows, macOS also has secret files that are hidden so that a user doesn’t meddle with it but sometimes you need to access the hidden files.
If you want to tweak a setting to perform a troubleshooting step (like finding a log or deleting a preference file), you need to make some changes in those hidden files. Some of you also want to get rid of the files from the hidden folder as they take way too much space.
So the question is “how to access the hidden files?”
Well, we have a solution for it. With the help of terminal and simple command, you can get your Mac’s hidden files and folders.
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In this article, we have discussed how to view hidden files and folders on Mac with Terminal.
Launch Terminal
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View Hidden Files and Folders:
“defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE” (This command tells the Finder to show all files, irrespective of the hidden flag setting )
“killall Finder” (This command will stop and restart Finder, so that the changes can take place)
Note: It is normal to see the Desktop screen vanish and reappear while executing the commands.
Once these commands are executed, you will be able to see a file named.DS_Store. The .DS_Store file consists of information about the folder, you are currently in, including the icon, the location of the window and other bits of information the system requires. Moreover, you get the access to the important hidden folders such as the Library folder inside your Home folder. The Library folder contains many files and folders which is related to a particular apps and services that you use on your Mac.
Note: It is recommended to take a good look at your Library folder and target the issue that you are having, then make any changes.
Hide The Files:
Now that you have seen the hidden folders or you are done with the troubleshooting, you must hide the folders to keep them safe.
“defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE?”
“killall Finder”
Press return key or enter key to execute the command and done, the hidden files are hidden once again.
In this way, you can hide and show the hidden folders of Mac with the help of Terminal. Try it and let us know what worked for you.
Next Read: How To Use Mac’s General Preferences Pane
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Show Mac Hidden Files
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Your Mac has a secret. Thousands of them in fact, in the form of hidden files and folders lurking on its hard drive or SSD. Don’t worry, though. These files and folders are all supposed to be there. In fact, many of them are essential.
Many of these files are in your Mac’s main Library folder or in the ~/Library folder, which is in your User folder. Both these Library folders are hidden, but inside them are folders and files that hold things like preferences for apps.
In this article, we’ll tell you how you can view hidden files on your Mac and make your Library folder visible.
What are the hidden files on Mac?
The hidden files are a throwback to macOS’ Unix roots. In fact, the convention of naming them starting with a “.” comes from Unix. For that reason, you can’t use a “.” at the start of a regular file name, otherwise OS X will hide it.
The files themselves contain data like access rights and privileges for files and folders, application support files, and preferences. Canon mg4200 manual.
There are a number of reasons files and folders are hidden. Mostly, though, it’s because they contain data critical to the smooth running of your Mac and that you shouldn’t interfere with. In addition, there’s no real reason for most users to see or access them. Also, if they were all visible, your Mac would look horribly cluttered.
How to view hidden files on Mac
https://celestialrecruitment.weebly.com/book-layout-software-mac-free.html. Before you make your Mac show hidden files, it’s important to remember they’ve been hidden for a reason. The data they contain could cause havoc if you delete or alter it and don’t know what you’re doing.
If your goal in viewing, for example ~/Library is so you can manually delete application support files for a program you’ve uninstalled, consider using a dedicated uninstaller like CleanMyMac X. That will make it easy to remove all the files associated with an application with one click. You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.
CleanMyMac X will also allow you to get rid of all the hidden files you no longer need. Many of these files are created and used then not needed anymore. They just sit there clogging up your hard drive. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac, identifies this system junk and allows you to quickly and easily get rid of it, potentially several gigabytes of disk space.
If you still want to view hidden files on your Mac, you need to go to the Finder and do the following:
How to view your Mac’s ~/Library folder
There are a couple of methods for making your ~/Library folder visible. Here’s the simplest:
Alternatively, do this to view your Library folder:
With both these methods, your Library folder will disappear again when you close the Finder window. It’s easy enough to run through the steps above again to make it visible again when you need to, but if you want it permanently accessible, there are a couple of ways to do it.
The quickest is to drag the Library folder to the Finder’s sidebar. That will create a shortcut to it that will persist. If you want to keep ~/Library visible but don’t want it clogging up the sidebar in Finder windows, do this:
How to make macOS show hidden files using Terminal
If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can use the Terminal command line interface to view hidden files and folders. Here’s how to do it:
To hide the files again, repeat the above steps, but replace ‘true’ with ‘false’ at the end of step 2.
How to hide any file or folder using Terminal
Now that you know how to view hidden files and folders on your Mac, you may be wondering how you can hide other files or folders, to keep them away from prying eyes. There are a number of third-party applications and utilities that offer to do this for you, but you can do it yourself in Terminal, like this: Can you approve an app on iphone using mac.
Hidden File Apps For Mac Download
The file or folder you dragged onto the Terminal window will now be hidden. To see it again, use one of the methods described above to see hidden files.
https://celestialrecruitment.weebly.com/open-source-karaoke-software-mac.html. To make the file visible permanently again, use the steps above, but in step 2 type: chflags nohidden
As you can see, viewing hidden files and folders on your Mac is very straightforward. There are a number of ways to do it, and you can make them visible temporarily or permanently.
However, just because you can view hidden files, doesn’t mean you should — the files are usually hidden because accidentally deleting them or altering them could cause chaos on your Mac. So, while it’s fine to have a peek, don’t do anything with the hidden files unless you know what you’re doing.
If you want to declutter your Mac or uninstall applications, use a dedicated application like CleanMyMac X. It will safely remove all useless files, add-ons, broken login items, caches, large and old files you didn't know about. Most likely, you won't even need to look for hidden files — CleanMyMac will do all the job for you.
We also showed that many of those files are stored in Library folders, including the one in your User folder, ~/Library. That folder is hidden by default, but you can view it or make it permanently visible using the techniques described above.
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