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http://ianlunn.co.uk/articles/quickly-showhide-hidden-files-mac-os-x-mavericks/

It seems like every day I search Google for the command to show hidden files on Mac OS X, not to mention Googling for the command to then hide those hidden files a few minutes later.

Today I decided to make a short and easy to remember alias to speed up the process. All I need do now is type showFiles and hideFiles whenever I need to show/hide OS X’s hidden files. Here’s how you can do it too.

Show/Hide Hidden Files the Long Way

The long way to show hidden Mac OS X files is as follows: Open Terminal found in Finder > Applications > Utilities In Terminal, paste the following: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES Press return

Hold the ‘Option/alt’ key, then right click on the Finder icon in the dock and click Relaunch.

Relaunch Finder by right clicking the Finder Icon whilst holding the option/alt key Relaunch Finder by right clicking the Finder Icon whilst holding the ‘Option/alt’ key

This will show all hidden files. To hide them again, follow the same steps but replace the Terminal command with:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

It’s not the longest set of instructions or the biggest command to commit to memory but if you’re doing this a lot, it’s worth spending a few minutes now to save yourself a lot more time in the future.

Show/Hide Hidden Files using Terminal Aliases

A Terminal alias is a name or shortcut for one or multiple commands. Using an easy to remember alias, we can turn the above four step process into just one.

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:

Open Terminal found in Finder > Applications > Utilities

In Terminal, paste the following:

sudo nano ~/.bash_profile

Enter your Mac’s administration password if required, then hit return

At the bottom of the open .bash_profile file, paste the following:

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'

Press ctrl + O and hit return to save the file Press ctrl + X to exit the file and return to the command line

In Terminal, paste the following:

source ~/.bash_profile to refresh your profile and make the aliases available

Adding aliases to .bash_profile via Terminal