If we have some Top Secret files on our Mac that we want to hide from the Finder we can easily do it with the Terminal . When doing so, the files will not appear in the folder that contains them , however, we can always show the hidden files to access them.
How to hide files and folders
The steps are very simple:
- We open the Terminalapp that we will find inside the Others folder within Applications or using Spotlight.
- We write “chflags hidden”, without the quotes. Let’s make sure to leave a space after hidden.
- We drag the file or folder from the location it is in to the terminal window. In doing so we will see that the path of said file or folder is written.
- We press Enter (↩︎).
Et voilà, the file or folder will have disappeared from our sight.
How to redisplay files and folders
The first thing we have to do is show all the hidden files of the system by following the steps we saw in the article “How to see the hidden files of our Mac”.
While our computer shows us all the hidden files, we can access those that we hide manually to consult them, if what we want is to stop being hidden we will follow these steps:
- We open the Terminalapp that we will find inside the Others folder within Applications or using Spotlight.
- We write “chflags nohidden”, without the quotes. Let’s make sure to leave a space after hidden.
- We drag the file or folder from the location it is in to the terminal window. In doing so we will see that the path of said file or folder is written.
- We press Enter (↩︎).
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Let’s keep in mind that hiding files only protects them up to a point. It is easy for someone with access to our computer to follow the same steps in this article to access them. Even so, without a doubt, and especially if they are not looking specifically for them, they will be safe from prying eyes.
