How to Show Hidden Files in Finder Window and Create Alias Shortcut on MacOS?

How to Show Hidden Files on a Mac? How to Access Your Mac’s Hidden Files?

By default, Mac OS X keeps all files and folders starting with . (dot) hidden.

Here is a sample. How to access the hidden files on your Mac computer.

If you have used Maven in past then you might have some info about .m2 folder. As we know Maven Downloads all .jar files from repository to local machine in a default directory name .m2 and location of this directory in Windows machine (Inside Users Folder) Or in Home directory in case of Mac machine. I wanted to change few .jar files and it took some time for me to figure out how to see these hidden files.

Another must read:

• Eclipse: Missing web.xml file? How can I create web.xml in Eclipse?

If you want to Show all hidden files then use this command:

1. Open Terminal found in Finder > Applications > Utilities
2. In Terminal, enter below command:

bash-3.2$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
bash-3.2$ killall Finder

OR

bash-3.2$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
bash-3.2$ killall Finder

Same way if you want to Hide all hidden files then use this command:

bash-3.2$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
bash-3.2$ killall Finder

OR

bash-3.2$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
bash-3.2$ killall Finder

Bonus Tips:

How to simplify this process by adding an Alias in .bash_profile file?

• Open Terminal
• Type below command to open file .bash_profile in VI editor. If you don’t have file already exist then just create a new one 🙂

bash-3.2$ vi ~/.bash_profile

• Enter below alias to file and save file

alias crunchifyShowFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder'

alias crunchifyHideFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder'

• In order to load .bash_profile execute below command.

bash-3.2$ source ~/.bash_profile

• And you should be all set.

Now just use crunchifyHideFiles and crunchifyShowFiles command directly in Mac OS X Terminal to Hide/Show hidden files in Finder Window.

bash-3.2$ crunchifyHideFiles

bash-3.2$ crunchifyShowFiles

Enjoy. Having trouble setting this up? Let me know if you have any question on How to see hidden files and folders in MacOS?