(Right now, I have it running in Finder only, and via the Keyboard Maestro menu bar icon so I don't need to remember a keyboard shortcut. This works quite well for me I can see the hidden files when I want them, and hide them again, all with the same command. The AppleScript at the end relaunches the Finder in a slightly nicer way than does just killing it in Terminal. Once saved in the variable, an 'If' loop checks the saved value and either sets or deletes the 'show invisible' flag. That command reads the current value of the hidden pref-it'll either be YES or it won't exist-and saves it to a variable. Viewing hidden files and folders on a Mac using Terminal. Step 2: Entering a command to see hidden files on a Mac. To launch Terminal on your Mac, use the following keyboard shortcut: Cmd + Space. The key to this script is actually in the hidden second step (sorry!) in the above image: The 'Excecute Shell Script' command is this one:ĭefaults read AppleShowAllFiles Showing hidden files on a Mac using Terminal commands Step 1: Open Terminal. Here's how the macro looks-as always, you can download it for your own use/modification. I wanted to make this toggling simpler, so I wrote a Keyboard Maestro macro to check the current state and reverse it. To hide them again, you can either set the pref to NO, or just delete it ( defaults delete AppleShowAllFiles) and then restart Finder again. All it takes to see them is one command and a Finder restart in Terminal: Now, normally I don't want to see all the invisible Unix files in Finder, but there are times (like when I'm working on a web site that might have an.

Despite its age, this tip still works in macOS Sierra. This remains here as a reminder of The Hard Way of doing this…Ī long-standing-since March of 2001-Mac OS X Hints tip reveals how to display hidden files and folders in Finder. Nice! If you're on an earlier version of macOS/OS X, however, you may find the macro version useful for easily showing and hiding hidden files in Finder. Thanks to NaOH for the great tip via the comments!īasically, if you want to show invisible files in Finder in Sierra, pressing ⇧⌘-Period will toggle them between hidden and visible. Update: If you're running macOS Sierra, ignore the rest of this tip because it's irrelevant! I had no idea Shift-Command-Period would show/hide hidden files directly in Finder in macOS Sierra.

Mac show hidden files finder