Show/Hide Hidden Files Terminal Alias
An alias can be made temporarily (just for the use of one terminal session) or permanently. As we want this to be a shortcut used now and in the future, let’s make it permanent:
sudo nano ~/.bash_profile
alias showFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'
alias hideFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'
source ~/.bash_profile
to refresh your profile and make the aliases availableAdding aliases to .bash_profile via Terminal
Now when you want to show hidden files, all you need type in Terminal isshowFiles
, then hideFiles
when you want to hide them.
If you want to modify the behaviour or alias names, let’s take a closer look at the commands you just added:
alias showFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES;
killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'
alias
tells Terminal we’re adding a new alias.
showFiles
is the name of the alias. Change this to what you wish.
We then give the alias two commands. The first being:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES;
This is the command to show hidden files and is ended with a semi-colon ;
so we can then use the second command:
killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app
This will relaunch the Finder (to replicate the step of holding ‘alt’ on the keyboard then right clicking the Finder icon in the dock).
showFiles
andhideFiles
to show and hide Mac OS X’s hidden files respectively.
Aliases can be used to speed up your interaction with the Terminal. Set up an alias for navigating to your most used directories, to commit to a GitHub repo and so on.