Our Mac contains thousands of files, from those that allow the proper functioning of the system to the photos we have in the Photos app or the emails we send with Mail . The vast majority of these files are visible, but there are some hidden. Requesting our Mac to show or hide hidden files is very easy, we will do it through the Terminal app .
A little explanation
The first command that we will use is called defaults and it is used to modify the default configurations (in English default ) of our Mac. We specify that we want to write , that is, to write, or modify a specific behavior . Then we indicate which configuration file we want to modify, in this case com.apple.Finder that belongs to the Finder app . Now we specify what type of behavior we want to edit, in this case AppleShowAllFiles that we could translate as AppleShowAllFiles . In the penultimate step we specify that the value to modify is a Boolean, that is, a value that can only be yes orno . Finally we define the value to YES or NO depending on what we want.
The second command that we will use is killall, that is to say, killed that allows us to finish running processes . The process that we finish in this case is Finder with what we cause it to restart, read the configuration file again and, in doing so, begin to show or hide the hidden files of the system.
How to show hidden files
- We open the Terminal app that we will find inside the Others folder , inside Applications (we can also use Spotlight ).
- Copy and paste without the quotes: “defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool YES”.
- We press Enter (↩︎).
- Next we copy and paste without the quotes: “killall Finder”.
- We press Enter (↩︎).
The Finder app will disappear for a second and when it reappears it will show all the hidden files on the system. If later we want to hide them again, it will be enough to repeat the previous steps , this time in step two we will use “defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool NO”. In the newer versions of the operating system we can use the key combination Command (⌘) + Shift (⇧) +. (period) to show and hide hidden files.
IN APPLESFERA
So we can group the Dock icons more clearly using spacers
As simple as that. With these two commands we can see or hide the hidden files of the system.
