How to Show or Hide Files in Finder (OSX)

If you want to show or hide files in finder you can use some command to switch the options. There is no menu in finder to show/hide file in Finder.

We are going to use the defaults command to access the Mac OS X user defaults system. Then you need to kill the Finder process to make Finder read the new configuration.

Showing hidden files in finder

Using defauls command we change the valye of com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles to TRUE:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Hiding files in finder

You can disable showing hide files using FALSE instead of TRUE

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder