Each time you need to hide or show hidden files and folders, just open this script file and click the Run button. Conclusion You can display hidden files on your Mac using the Funter app, an AppleScript, a Terminal command or a keyboard shortcut. May 01, 2019 All Mac systems contain hidden files and folders. These are often preceded by a full stop or a slash, and are kept out of sight of the user either to. How to Show Hidden Files on a Mac - MacRumors. Mar 21, 2018 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.
All Mac systems contain hidden files and folders. These are often preceded by a full stop or a slash, and are kept out of sight of the user either to prevent them from being deleted because they perform some essential function, or because they're irrelevant to everyday tasks.
Occasionally however, you might need to reveal these files and folders to fix a problem you're having with your Mac. The easiest way to reveal hidden files and folders in an active Finder window is to press the Shift, Command (⌘), and period symbol (.) keys in combination.
This action works everywhere except for the Desktop, and you can hide the affected files and folders again simply by repeating the key combo.
If you're comfortable using Terminal, entering the following command will also reveal all the hidden files on your Mac:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
Once you've typed the command and pressed Enter, hold down the Option key, then right-click on the Finder icon in the Dock and click Relaunch for the changes to take effect. To switch the files back to hidden, simply change 'YES' to 'NO' in the Terminal command.
That's all there is to it. You can also check out our separate how-to guide on revealing the hidden library folder in macOS.
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.
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.
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.
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:
There are a couple of methods for making your ~/Library folder visible. Here’s the simplest:
Alternatively, do this to view your Library folder:
Complete Library. This is a download containing the p5.js library file, the p5.sound addon, and an example project. It does not contain an editor. See Get Started to learn how to setup a p5.js project. The 0.6.2 version of p5 for Mac is available as a free download on our website. The program lies within Developer Tools, more precisely General. Our built-in antivirus checked this Mac download and rated it.
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:
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: Watchtower library mac mavericks 2016.
To hide the files again, repeat the above steps, but replace ‘true’ with ‘false’ at the end of step 2.
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:
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.
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.