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.
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:
Viewing Hidden Files In Mac Os X Library Catalina
Run the following command in Terminal: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true. This will keep your files permanently visible on Mac. To undo this action and keep hidden files hidden again, run the command defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles false
Unless you run the Terminal command to keep your hidden files permanently visible, they will remain hidden. If you did enable permanent visibility for these files, open Terminal and run the command defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles false. If you use the Command+Shift+Dot command to show hidden files, you can use the same command to hide them.
If you want to see hidden files and folders on Mac computer, you can check the 3 ways below to easily show hidden files and folders on macOS incl. Mojave/Catalina/High Sierra. To recover deleted/lost/hidden files on Mac or other storage devices, you can try the professional Mac data recovery software from MiniTool software.
Like Windows operating system (related: show hidden files on Windows 10), macOS also hides some files and folders from users to avoid some important files from be mistakenly deleted or damaged. If you need to show these hidden files and folders on Mac, you have several ways to do this. You can check the detailed guide below. Also, if you need to recover deleted/lost/hidden files on Mac, this post also attaches an easy guide.
You can use keyboard shortcut to easily show hidden files and hide them on Mac. In Finder, you can press Command + Shift + . to show hidden files. If you want to hide those files again, you can press this shortcut again. This method applies to macOS Sierra or higher.
Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, a top data recovery program for macOS 10.7 and higher, enables you to easily recover lost, deleted or hidden files from Mac hard drive and external drives in 3 simple steps.
Step 2. Next you can choose the hard drive or location where you want to scan for lost/deleted/hidden files, and click Scan button. This smart data recovery software for Mac will start scanning all the data on the selected drive.
Step 3. Wait until the scan process finishes. You can see all detected files incl. deleted/lost/hidden files are displayed in the scan result window. You can browse the scan result to find your needed files and click Recover button. Select a destination and click Save button to store the recovered files to a new location.
This post introduces three ways to help you show hidden files on Mac Mojave/Catalina/High Sierra. You can also use the professional data recovery software for Mac to recover hidden files on Mac as well as retrieve deleted/lost files on Mac or other storage devices with ease.
Your user library (/Library) folder contains all your personal user settings, caches, preference files, iOS firmware updates for iTunes, app support files, iMessage and Message archive, and other essential data.
With both US and British keyboard layouts the OSD Keyboard Viewer works fine for doing the Command-Shift-Period to toggle the hidden files. I'll be curious if that works for you. (just click command, then shift, then period on the OSD keyboard while having your Finder set to your Home folder, for example).
There's a thread over here that says cmd+shift+Fn+period is the "new" way, but others report cmd+shift+period still works, as it does for me. That thread also mentions the Terminal command to universally reveal hidden files.
Use one of the ways we shared to access the hidden Library folder on Mac. Also, you can use a special free utility Funter to find and operate hidden files and folders on Mac. But, once again, if you are a new Mac user and don`t know much about the architecture and functions of macOS, it is highly recommended that you be careful and not remove important files from the Library.
Summary: This post tells how to make Mac show hidden files quickly. If you can't locate certain disappeared files on your Mac computer, you can also use iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery to find them easily.
It is reasonable and convenient that macOS keep some files hidden by default. However, what if you need to show hidden files for some reason? For example, you manually hide files on your Mac with the "chflags hidden" command, keeping them from accidental deletion, but later you can't find these hidden files anymore.
Or you want to delete some leftover files after uninstalling apps on Mac, but you can't find them because Mac OS has hidden those files. What should you do to make Mac show hidden files or hidden folders?
For security: The main reason is that the core system files need to be hidden so that your Mac can run correctly. It will protect these files from being damaged or deleted by the average Mac user. All the hidden files include preferences, caches, logs, and other service files of the installed apps and the Mac operating system.
For tidiness: Another reason why some files are hidden is that if files on Mac are all visible to you, your computer and the desktop would appear like a mess. Therefore, files that are not used frequently are put out of sight.
However, in some cases, you probably want to find hidden files to troubleshoot apps' errors, to find some lost/disappeared files, or to clear cache on Mac by deleting hidden files for more available spaces. Don't know how to spotlight these invisible files? Don't worry, the following part will go into detail.
Actually, a keyboard shortcut is the easiest and the most efficient way of viewing hidden files on Mac computers, because you only need to press some keys on your keyboard. Showing hidden files and folders on your Mac with the following steps:
Then, you will see a dozen of Macintosh HD folders and files that appear as grayed out in the right column. That indicates all the hidden files are showing up. To access the files of a Macintosh HD folder, double-click on it.
Besides macOS volume, this method can also be used to show hidden files and folders on external hard drives and USB flash drives, and show hidden files on sd cards. If you can't see files on the external hard drive on Mac, maybe those files are hidden. Using this key shortcut should work, too.
The Finder is the default file manager and graphical user interface shell used on macOS. It is responsible for all applications, files, disks, network volumes, etc. So, if you want to reveal hidden files and folders, you can show hidden files in the Finder.
Showing hidden files on Mac with the Terminal utility is another advanced way. Running Terminal requires familiarity with the command prompt. If you are familiar with the command line, do the following to make your Mac show hidden files and folders:
It is possible that you still can't see hidden or disappeared files on your Mac after trying all the mentioned solutions. The last resort to show hidden files on macOS Ventura, macOS Monterey, or earlier is to use an intuitive third-party app.
iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is a professional and 100% safe app to help you quickly retrieve all the files on your Macintosh hard drive, including the hidden ones. No matter what the reason you lose data, such as accidental deletion, virus attack, or secret files hidden by the Mac operating system, this software can get those files back.
If you have shown the hidden files in Finder with a keyboard shortcut, and vice versa, you can also hide them using the same keyboard shortcut. To do this, just press Command + Shift + Period once more.
It doesn't matter if you want to show the hidden files just out of curiosity or to troubleshoot some issues on your Mac. The aforementioned solutions should be helpful to locate these files. But compared with the complicated command lines, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is the easiest and risk-free method to find the missing files on Mac computers.
The easiest way to reveal hidden files and folders in an active Finder window is to press the Shift + Command + period symbol (.) key combinations. This action works everywhere except for the Desktop, and you can hide the affected files and folders again simply by repeating the key combo.
In Terminal, type chflags hidden and then drag a folder or file you want to hide into the Terminal window; you can still access those hidden folders and files by summoning the Go To Folder dialog (Command-Shift-G) and typing in their full paths. To unhide them, go back to Terminal and type chflags nohidden followed by the file or folder path.
You can change this setting so that files are added to your library without being added to the Music folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store files on an external disk but still want to view them in Music.
So, as I mentioned earlier, your Mac has 3 Library folders, 2 of these are visible, and one is hidden from plain sight. The ones you can see contain all the files accessible to all Mac users. The hidden Library folder contains all the files that your macOS needs to run.
Keyboard shortcuts are probably the easiest way to display hidden files and folders in the Finder on a Mac. You can show hidden files by pressing the Command, Shift, and Period keys at the same time.
The above keyboard shortcut for showing hidden files on a Mac works in any folder in the Finder. One exception is the Library folder, which is usually hidden. It mainly contains system files and automatically saved copies of Microsoft Office documents. Showing the Library folder is especially useful when you're looking for old Word documents and are unable to find them. If your computer crashes before you could save your data, you should look in the Library folder. You can access this folder using the following shortcut: 2ff7e9595c
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