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Show Hidden Files on MacOS with Keyboard Shortcut

This guide is about the How to Show Hidden Files on MacOS with a Keyboard Shortcut. I will try my best so that you understand this guide very well. I hope you all like this guide How to Show Hidden Files on MacOS with a Keyboard Shortcut.

Modern versions of Mac OS provide a very quick and easy way to reveal invisible files on your Mac. All you need is a keyboard shortcut. With a simple keystroke, you can show hidden files instantly on your Mac, and with the same keyboard shortcut, you can hide hidden files again. This is by far the fastest way to show and hide invisible files on your Mac. You don’t have to use the default command to show hidden files (although it still works), instead you can just use a handy keyboard shortcut in any Finder or file access window.

Using the hidden file shortcut requires a modern version of Mac OS system software, including macOS Mojave, High Sierra, and macOS Sierra, anything other than 10.12 should support keyboard shortcuts for invisible files.

If the concept is unfamiliar to you, hidden files and hidden folders on a Mac are typically either system-level items, configuration information, or some other file or folder that is usually hidden from the average user for a reason. Therefore, revealing hidden files is usually only necessary for more advanced Mac users, regardless of whether they are viewing, editing, or editing a specific invisible file or folder or their contents.

How to show hidden files on a Mac with a keyboard shortcut

Using the Show Hidden Files shortcut key is incredibly simple, here’s how it works:

  1. From the Mac OS Finder, navigate to any folder that may contain hidden files (such as the Macintosh HD root directory or a user’s home folder)
  2. Finder icon on a Mac

  3. Press now Command + shift + dot to change the display of hidden files immediately
  4. Show hidden files on your Mac with the keyboard shortcut

Here’s an example of what the Macintosh HD directory looks like when hidden files are visible, and when hidden files are invisible again, this is shown animated in GIF so you can see the hidden files visible and disappear:

Show and hide hidden files with a keyboard shortcut on a Mac, as the animated GIF looks like

As you can see, hidden files and folders become visible and invisible when you press a hotkey.

Hidden files and folders that are often marked as hidden by the chflags command, configuration files, or settings. period as the name prefix, appears immediately. Hidden files that are now visible appear to have slightly faded names and icons to provide a visual indication that the file or folder in question is usually hidden.

Hidden files now appear in the Mac folder with the keyboard shortcut

Note that when hidden files are visible, they appear in all folders on your Mac, just as they do if the default command shows hidden files in Mac OS and Mac OS X. The big difference between modern Mac OS releases and earlier system software versions is that the Command + Shift + Episode keyboard is now available to show and hide invisible items in the Finder, while before you had to use the Terminal Defaults command to reveal or hide those files and folders. If you want a command-line approach for some reason, it’s still available in modern Mac OS releases.

Hide hidden files on your Mac with a keyboard shortcut

And of course, you can quickly hide hidden files again and make them invisible using the same keyboard shortcut:

  • Navigate in any Mac Finder and press Command + Shift + Episode again to hide invisible files

Hidden files are invisible again by changing the same keyboard shortcut

Changing the hidden file shortcut affects all folders on your Mac.

Command + Shift + Episode is a keyboard shortcut for switching hidden files in Mac OS

Just remember to press down Command + shift + dot Hides or shows invisible files in the Mac OS file system.

A hotkey shows or hides hidden files in Mac OS

The visual indicator for hidden files and folders is pretty obvious. Here is the default state of the folder (root Macintosh HD) where hidden files are not visible:

Hidden files are invisible in Mac OS

And here’s the same folder with hidden files that appear via a keyboard shortcut, as you can see, there are a lot more items in the same directory, but they’re hidden from the user’s regular Finder view. Each hidden file or folder is represented by a faded opaque icon and name:

Hidden files are visible in Mac OS

If this keyboard shortcut sounds familiar to you and you’re a long-time Mac user, it’s probably because the command transition trick has long changed the view of invisible items in the Open and Save dialog boxes, now the same keyboard shortcut can also change the visibility of invisible items in the Mac OS Universal Finder .

As mentioned earlier, you can still show and hide hidden files in Mac OS with the Defaults command if you want, or you can enable the Defaults command and hide them again with the keystroke mentioned above, but the default string syntax is simply no longer needed for quick file quick access. for use.

Again, this keyboard shortcut trick only applies to modern MacOS releases, earlier versions of system software must use the command line method instead.

Whether you show or hide invisible files on a Mac is entirely up to you, but usually making them visible is best for advanced Mac users who need to access hidden directories or files that are scattered throughout Mac OS. Be sure not to delete, edit, or delete hidden files without knowing what you are doing, many of them are configuration files for various applications, programs, and functions, or essential components for Mac OS and software.

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FAQ: How to Show Hidden Files on MacOS with a Keyboard Shortcut

In this guide, I told you about the How to Show Hidden Files on MacOS with a Keyboard Shortcut.

In this guide, I discuss about the How to Show Hidden Files on MacOS with a Keyboard Shortcut, which is very helpful.

Apple Devices only.

mac OS or iOS

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James Hogan
James Hogan
James Hogan is a senior staff writer at Bollyinside, where he has been covering various topics, including laptops, gaming gear, keyboards, storage, and more. During that period, they evaluated hundreds of laptops and thousands of accessories and built a collection of entirely too many mechanical keyboards for their own use.
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