By Hiding folders and files is necessary sometimes, no matter the reasons you want to do this for. If by hiding them, you try to increase your security, you should know that it will be a little more difficult for you to manage them because you won’t be able to access them directly in Finder.
Still, there’s always a way out and you can just use Finder’s possibility to show hidden files. You won’t have to make certain files visible again. So, even if you have several hidden files, you can manage them quite easily. But first of all, let’s see how to hide a file:
1. You can hide a file by renaming it so that the files have a period as the first character in the file name. Besides this, a Finder flag can be attributed to those files which, thus, won’t be displayed under normal browsing conditions.
2. To set the Finder Flag to a file, just type “chflags hidden” (without the quotation mark) after opening the Terminal utility. The file you want to hide must be dragged to the Terminal window. This way, the path of the file will be automatically added to the end of the command.
3. After doing so, just hit Return and the file should now be hidden. In case you want to undo this, type the same command and by using the arrow keys, switch from “hidden” to “nohidden”.
4. Copy and paste the following command in the Finder and you will reveal the hidden files.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True;killall Finder
To make the files hidden again, you will have to type the same command but change “True” to “False”. You can use OnyX, Show Hidden Files or MacPilot as well to reveal the hidden files.
5. If you find the method above a little difficult to remember and you’d like to go for an easier method to manage hidden files, then you can sequester all the files you want to be hidden in a single folder. To put all of them in a folder that you will hide, you will have to go to the desired location and create a folder. The newly created file you see in the image below is named “HiddenSecrets”.
6. Hide this newly created folder by using the Finder Flag method. To access this hidden folder, just use “Go To Folder” from Finder. This way, the hidden folder will be seen in the Finder and the hidden files on your computer won’t be revealed. You can use this hidden folder to copy files to or from it. Once the Finder window is closed, the folder will be hidden again. To see it again, just use Finder’s Go menu.
