Now we’re ready! Once the path appears in the Terminal window, press “Enter” to set the hidden flag. It’s far easier working this way versus finding and then typing out the path to the folder by hand.Ĥ.

This will automatically insert the correct file path, including any kind of “escaping” to handle spaces and special characters. Grab this folder from Finder and drag it into the Terminal window. Here, I’ll be hiding a generic folder I’ve created for the purposes of this demonstration. Open a Finder window and navigate to the file or folder you want to hide. We still need to do a little more before we can execute our command.ģ. In the Terminal window, copy and paste the command below, imitating the screenshot. If you’re not comfortable with how Terminal works, you might want to review our guide for getting started with Terminal.Ģ. Open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app. By the end of this guide you’ll learn how to reveal all hidden files on the system, providing a first-hand look at how little security a hidden file provides. We must reiterate, however: this provides no security at all. It’s more like tucking something in a particularly obscure drawer. This attribute can be applied to both files and folders. It still exists, but it’s just not visible.

Even if you navigate into the Finder window where the file should appear, you won’t see the file. When you hide files on macOS, you set a special attribute that makes it invisible to Finder. What does it mean when you hide files on macOS? Keep in mind that this doesn’t remove the file from your system or encrypt it. This will make the file invisible until you choose to reveal it or turn the invisibility off. Your Mac has a few built-in ways to hide files on macOS from Finder windows.

Mac console commands hidden files