Finding specific things

Showing hidden files

Updated 2026-07-31 · 3 min read

macOS hides anything beginning with a dot, plus a handful of system folders. Two keystrokes reveal them.

The shortcut

In any Finder window press ⇧⌘. (shift-command-period). Hidden files appear, dimmed. Press it again to hide them.

This is a display toggle only — nothing is changed on disk.

Permanently

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
killall Finder

Set it back with false.

What is hidden and why

• Dotfiles — .zshrc, .gitignore, .env. Unix convention, honoured by Finder.
• ~/Library — hidden with a flag rather than a dot.
• System volumes — /usr, /bin, /etc and friends are hidden to keep Finder tidy.
• .DS_Store — Finder's own per-folder view settings. Harmless, ubiquitous, and the

reason folders copied to a Windows machine look untidy.

Searching hidden files

Spotlight ignores most of them. find does not care:

find ~ -name ".*" -maxdepth 1

To search inside dotfiles for text:

grep -r "search term" ~/.config

Unhiding a specific folder

chflags nohidden ~/Library

The reverse is chflags hidden. This is how ~/Library is hidden in the first place — a flag on the folder, not a dot in its name.

Common questions

Is it safe to show hidden files permanently?

Yes. It changes what Finder displays, nothing else. The risk is only that you might then move or delete something you should not.

What is .DS_Store and can I delete it?

Finder's per-folder view preferences. Deleting them is harmless; Finder recreates them and you lose only icon positions and window sizes.