Show Hidden Files on Mac


If you find yourself needing to access hidden files on your Mac (say an .htaccess file you downloaded), run the below command from the terminal.

For those who don't know, files that are hidden in Mac OS are determined so by preceding the filename with a single period symbol (.), you can actually make any file hidden by doing this.

Show Hidden Files on your Mac Launch the Terminal and enter these commands exactly as shown. The first command activates the ability to see the hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Now you must relaunch the Finder by killing it, this is how the changes take effect:

killall Finder

If you want to hide hidden files again (those preceded with a .) and go back to the default Mac settings, you can just type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

Again you will need to kill the Finder so that it can relaunch for changes to take effect:

killall Finder

That's all there is to it!