Viewing Hidden Files and Folders on Apple OS/X

Most operating systems make this rather trivial to expose, Apple seems to have made it just a tiny bit more difficult… as such, I provide the simple steps here for my own memory as well as your benefit.

Open Terminal…

  • Launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
  • Type or copy/paste the following commands. Press the return key after you enter each line.
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
    killall Finder

WARNING: Be particularly careful about the files you modify or delete, you could impact your system in very critical ways… there is a reason they are ‘hidden’, most often it is to keep less-technical users from breaking things 🙂

Return hidden files to their usual state.

Open Terminal…

  • Launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
  • Type or copy/paste the following commands. Press the return key after you enter each line.
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
    killall Finder

Cheers