Added shortcut method available on macOS Sierra keyboard.
Updates
Apple mac where is my cursor app os x yosemite. It seems like every day I search Google for the command to show hidden files on Mac OS X, not to mention Googling for the command to then hide those hidden files a few minutes later.
Today I decided to make a short and easy to remember alias to speed up the process. All I need do now is type
showFiles and hideFiles whenever I need to show/hide OS X's hidden files. Here's how you can do it too.
The Quickest Way to Show/Hide Hidden Files
Since the release of macOS Sierra, when in Finder, it is now possible to use the shortcut:
Show hidden files free download - Show Hidden Files, Show My Hidden Files, Reveal Hidden Files, and many more programs. Show or hide all hidden files on your mac. Free Editors' rating. The files you won't be able to see by default are typically preceded by a full stop, for example.htaccess file,.bashprofile or.svn directory. Folders like /usr, /bin, and /etc are hidden away.
Press once to show hidden files and again to hide them. If you're using a version earlier than macOS Sierra, see Show/Hide Hidden Files using Terminal Aliases to setup a toggle command via terminal.
Thanks to Guido Schlabitz for making me aware of this new shortcut.
Show/Hide Hidden Files the Long Way![]()
The long way to show hidden Mac OS X files is as follows:
This will show all hidden files. To hide them again, follow the same steps but replace the Terminal command with:
It's not the longest set of instructions or the biggest command to commit to memory but if you're doing this a lot, it's worth spending a few minutes now to save yourself a lot more time in the future.
Show/Hide Hidden Files using Terminal Aliases
A Terminal alias is a name or shortcut for one or multiple commands. Using an easy to remember alias, we can turn the above four step process into just one.
An alias can be made temporarily (just for the use of one terminal session) or permanently. As we want this to be a shortcut used now and in the future, let's make it permanent:
Now when you want to show hidden files, all you need type in Terminal is
showFiles , then hideFiles when you want to hide them.
If you want to modify the behaviour or alias names, let's take a closer look at the commands you just added:
alias tells Terminal we're adding a new alias.
Show Hidden Files Download Mac MojaveshowFiles is the name of the alias. Change this to what you wish.
We then give the alias two commands. The first being: Download photoshop elements 12 mac.
This is the command to show hidden files and is ended with a semi-colon
; so we can then use the second command:
This will relaunch the Finder (to replicate the step of holding the 'Option/alt' key then right clicking the Finder icon in the dock).
Conclusion
With the aliases set up, all you need do in the future is type
showFiles and hideFiles to show and hide Mac OS X's hidden files respectively.
How To Show Hidden Files On Mac
Aliases can be used to speed up your interaction with the Terminal. Set up an alias for navigating to your most used directories, to commit to a GitHub repo and so on.
View Hidden File Mac
Ian Lunn is a Front-end Developer with 12 years commercial experience, author of CSS3 Foundations, and graduate of Internet Technology. He creates successful websites that are fast, easy to use, and built with best practices.
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December 2020
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