View Hidden Folders in Mac OSX Finder
In a previous article (Show Hidden Files in Mac OS X Finder) Craig described how to change your Finder settings to always view all the hidden files on your system. If you would rather not leave them visible, then here’s a simple way to get to hidden directories when you need to.
A few times recently I’ve found myself browsing around in the terminal window for a second, then switching to finder only to realize that the file I wanted to open was in one of the hidden “system” directories that Apple wants to hide from me. Well, most of the time I’m perfectly content having those directories hidden from me. Craig’s trick makes everything permanently visible, until you switch it off, which make me have to do some extra work to switch the hidden folders to visible and then switch them back to hidden again. But here’s a simple way to get to those hidden files without switching anything on and off. And what’s amazing about this trick is that it’s not exactly arcane hackery. All you have to do is select a menu in the Finder! What? Finder has menus? I hardly ever use them since I’ve gotten used to the keyboard shortcut for “New Finder Window” (it’s cmd+N if you’re curious), and I generally right click to get a new folder created in the right spot.
So, lets say you need to access /etc for some reason. Go to Finder and select the go menu. Then select “Go to Folder…”
A dialog box appears:
Type in the hidden directory path you’d like to view, press “Go” and you’re set.
Read more: Productivity, Mac
zgrinch wrote:
Nice.
Posted 15 Aug 2008 at 9:00 pm ¶
Sion Stanton wrote:
thanx a great help
Posted 27 Aug 2008 at 1:18 pm ¶
Jan wrote:
Thanks for the great tip - I was trying to find files on old NTFS-formatted external drive that I had used with XP. Brilliant!
Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 1:28 pm ¶
Matty wrote:
thankyou my friend
manual hosts patch on photoshop cs4 worked a treat
infinate trial period
MWAHAHAHA
Posted 09 Oct 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶
sudhansu mohan behera wrote:
I am very happy for your tricky and intelligent solution
Posted 22 Mar 2010 at 11:25 am ¶
John H wrote:
Awesome tip. Works beautifully for navigating hidden system folders on NTFS drives. Slick!
Posted 15 Apr 2010 at 12:27 pm ¶
Roberto wrote:
Thanks a lot.
Great tip.
I was looking for a simple way to get into my maven repository and indeed I found some tricky black magic to show all hidden files, restart finder and so on, but yours is just what I was looking for.
I know that you wrote this two years ago, but anyway, it was helpful for me.
Thanks man!
Posted 27 Dec 2010 at 5:59 am ¶
Rocky wrote:
Thanks for the tip. Sometimes difficult things can be easy - once you know how to do it!!
You have saved me hours of work now and countless in the future!
Posted 17 Apr 2011 at 8:17 am ¶
Sharone wrote:
Thank you kind, sir. For some reason never worked for me.
Posted 18 Apr 2011 at 9:32 am ¶
Sharone wrote:
Thank you kind, sir. For some reason “defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES” never worked for me.
Posted 18 Apr 2011 at 9:33 am ¶
marcdrogin wrote:
I’ve spent most of the evening trying to discover how to fix Skype from crashing by removing a file from an invisible folder. I got no simple inclusive instructions from Skype and other websites were no clearer. One even would have had me typing code into Terminal something which I realized would have truly been terminal. At last I found your instruction, clear and straightforward, followed it, found the folder, trashed the file, restarted Skype… and it worked! I do thank you most sincerely!
Posted 26 May 2011 at 7:48 pm ¶
Paul Talik wrote:
This didn’t work for me. I have a .token folder in my home directory that I cannot browse to using Finder. Finder says it does not exist even though I am in it with terminal.
Posted 18 Aug 2011 at 12:54 am ¶
Jay wrote:
Sharone….the proper syntax for the terminal code is
“defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE” (not YES)
Posted 18 Aug 2011 at 1:13 pm ¶
Aija wrote:
Very useful. Thanks.
Posted 26 Sep 2011 at 4:08 pm ¶
pekka wrote:
Fu**n thanks m8 ur the best…..!!!!
Posted 01 Dec 2011 at 3:42 pm ¶