While in the MS-DOS or the Windows command line, it may be necessary to view hidden files and directories. Navigate to the directory you want to view hidden files or directories and use either the attrib or below dir commands.

Viewing hidden files with dir command

2) In the dropdown click Show Menubar 3) When you have the menubar click View 4) Select Adjust View Properties 5) In the box that shows up check Show hidden files That'll get you going & welcome to Opensuse & the Opensuse forums! Show Hidden Files on Windows 8 and 10. This option is easily accessible in File Explorer on Windows 8 and 10. Click the “View” tab on File Explorer’s ribbon and click the “Hidden items” checkbox in the Show/hide section. File Explorer will immediately show hidden files and will remember this setting until you change it.

The above command lists all hidden files and hidden directories in the current directory.

Lists all hidden files in the current directory (the one that you are in), but not hidden subdirectories.

Lists all files and directories including hidden files and hidden directories in the current directory.

Viewing hidden files with attrib command

Typing the attrib command alone displays all files in the current directory with their attributes to the left of the directory path and file name. Files that have an 'H' to the left are hidden files.

If too many files are listed, adding '| more' to the end of the attrib command displays all files with attributes one page at a time.

Finally, if you know the file name or file type, adding it with a wild characters displays all files with their attributes. For example, the above command lists any log file (including hidden files) with its attributes.

Additional information

See the attrib command and dir command page for further information and help with these commands.

Best FTP client for Mac

Get ForkLift, a smart and efficient Finder alternative.

When you look at your desktop, or inside any folder for that matter, on your Mac you’ll see a number (one that will vary depending on how well-organized you are) of file and folder icons. What all of us have in common, however, is a huge range of system files that are hidden just out of view.

Easy way to show hidden files

Try Setapp to make all your files visible on a Mac. With the tools we offer, nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

Those of us who have lived online for long enough will remember the Delete System32 hoax, with which trolls encouraged naive PC users to delete their Windows 2000 system directory. It’s not a shock that, since those days, developers have taken more care to hide away files that are essential to their operating systems.

There are, however, times when you need to access those files. Most of them are hidden away in the ~/Library folder, but the truth is that the average Mac holds a treasure trove of files and folders that you either no longer need or may want to access for troubleshooting purposes.

Is it normal that 'System' takes up 90GB+ of storage? What does it contain? How to get your System folder under control?

Three Ways to See Hidden Files on Mac

There’s good news for anyone out there who’s looking to access hidden files on their Mac: you can do exactly that, in a number of different ways, by arming yourself with a little bit of knowledge. There are a couple of Finder augmentation and replacement apps, for example, that make the process as easy as clicking a single button.

Before kicking off, however, it’s important to highlight that you should play it safe when digging through hidden files on your laptop or desktop. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for you can do some serious damage to your operating system, so you’ll want to proceed with caution. Hack dialog tv. After all, these files are hidden for a reason!

See hidden files on Mac via Finder

As mentioned above, it doesn’t take much to make the hidden files on your Mac visible. In fact, you can check out all of the hidden files on your Mac by following just three easy steps:

In Finder, open up your Macintosh HD folder
Press Command+Shift+Dot
Your hidden files will become visible. Repeat step 2 to hide them again!

This process will also work elsewhere, including your Documents or Applications folders. However, if you know what you’re looking for is in your ~/Library folder and would rather jump straight into that then you can take the following steps instead:

In Finder, hold down Alt and click Go at the top of your screen
Click on Library to open up the, normally hidden, folder

Be prepared for one very cluttered looking Desktop if you decide to uncover all the hidden files there. If you’re anything like the average Mac user, most of what you’ll find will be made up of system files and autosaved Microsoft Word documents!

Some users have reported success finding documents that they thought were lost forever after their Mac crashed without saving, which is always a useful tip to have in the back pocket.

Unhide files on Mac with Terminal commands

Terminal, a Mac command-line interface, is included in macOS by default and allows you to use command prompts to control your Mac instead of following a potentially complex series of instructions to do the same thing in Finder.

If you’re already familiar with using Terminal, then you might prefer to run the following script to reveal your hidden files:

Open Terminal
Enter the following: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true [Press Return] killall Finder
To hide files again, change the “true” in the step above to “false”

It doesn’t matter too much whether you use Terminal or Finder to make the hidden files on your Mac visible, though you might prefer the latter if you’ve never run scripts on Terminal before, as both routes accomplish the same thing.

One reason you might opt to use Terminal is that it allows you to hide any file or folder on your Mac, which is a great way to avoid that sense of residual curiosity felt by others should they come across a password protected .rar on your desktop! To hide files, just:

Open Terminal
Enter the following: chflags hidden [Press Space]
Drag files or folders to be hidden from Finder into the Terminal window, which will display their paths in Terminal
Press Return to hide

To make your files visible again, just repeat the above steps using “chflags nohidden” in place of “chflags hidden.” Of course, the fact that anyone else who knows this trick can also use it to unhide your files means that this isn’t an adequate substitute for other security measures.

Use file managers to access hidden files

How to find the path of a file in Mac? Apps like DCommander and Forklift, both of which perform like native macOS apps and function as extensions of Finder, represent great choices if you’re at all uncomfortable using Terminal or digging around in your ~/Library folder.

Because these apps allow you to make hidden files and folders visible (or invisible) using shortcuts or clicking buttons within the apps, they make the whole process incredibly simple. In Forklift, for example, you can show hidden files by:

Clicking View
Selecting View Options towards the bottom of the dropdown menu
Checking the box next to Show Hidden Files

There’s also a button in the toolbar to show and hide hidden files. DCommander has a similar function available, with a Show System Files command, but you need to add it manually to the app’s toolbar:

As you might guess from those subtle differences in terminology, we would suggest that Forklift is more suitable for someone looking for something that really looks and acts like Finder. DCommander, with a larger range of features and toolbar buttons enabled by default, is still intuitive but feels a little more dense.

Whichever you settle on

Forklift 2 Show Hidden Files