John Prokos

Q: Double clicking on invisible folder won't open it

Invisible folder behavior is different in 10.8 compared to 10.6. Finder won't open an invisible folder when you double click on it. I never installed Lion so don't know if this same behavior was there too. Is this a security feature or a bug?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 8 GB Memory

Posted on Feb 13, 2013 2:49 AM

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Q: Double clicking on invisible folder won't open it

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  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Feb 13, 2013 4:41 AM in response to John Prokos
    Level 8 (49,722 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 13, 2013 4:41 AM in response to John Prokos

    How do you double-click on something that is invisible?

  • by softwater,

    softwater softwater Feb 13, 2013 5:22 AM in response to John Prokos
    Level 5 (5,392 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 13, 2013 5:22 AM in response to John Prokos

    Are you talking about when in Icon view?

     

    Either switch to column or list view or, if you must use Icon view, control-click and choose 'open'.

  • by John Prokos,

    John Prokos John Prokos Feb 14, 2013 6:55 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 14, 2013 6:55 AM in response to Barney-15E

    Barney,

     

    It's very hard to do, only Apple Pro users can see the glow.

     

    You can show invisble files using the following terminal command:

     

    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True

     

    then restart finder by entering:


    killall Finder

     

    But like I said previously you can't double click on them to open them anymore. Either it's a bug or it's by design. I am hoping it's a bug/accident because it's annoying, time consuming and… more annoying.

     

     

    softwater,

     

    I don't want to control click. I want to double click. Control click and then move the cursor and click again is a more accurate description. That slows me down and is annoying when having to do it over and over again. These are system directories we are talking about. Why has this behavior changed?

  • by softwater,

    softwater softwater Feb 14, 2013 9:27 AM in response to John Prokos
    Level 5 (5,392 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 14, 2013 9:27 AM in response to John Prokos

    John Prokos wrote:

    these are system directories we are talking about. Why has this behavior changed?

     

    No idea, wasn't aware of it till you pointed it out because I never use icon view. Always been a column view man, myself (and just to reiterate, it doesn't occur in column view ).

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Feb 14, 2013 2:48 PM in response to John Prokos
    Level 8 (49,722 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 14, 2013 2:48 PM in response to John Prokos

    You can show invisble files using the following terminal command:

     

    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True

     

    then restart finder by entering:


    killall Finder

    Then they're not invisible anymore.

    However, they still have the hidden bit set, if that is how they were hidden. I haven't found a need to unhide anything (I just use unix, Go to Folder, or Go Library), so I don't know if the behavior has changed or if it is just something on your system.

     

    How many of these folders do you need to get into and how often?

    Maybe you can just create aliases to those folders so you can get to them easily. Or, you could create a Service to open them and even give them shortcuts.

  • by creativecoder,

    creativecoder creativecoder May 6, 2013 5:31 PM in response to John Prokos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 6, 2013 5:31 PM in response to John Prokos

    I am also wondering if this is a "feature". It is annoying.

     

    Cmd+o on the keyboard is a workaround that's faster than Ctrl+click

     

    I guess I'm switching to column view whenever I'm working with "invisible" folders and files

  • by vivekwisdom,

    vivekwisdom vivekwisdom Aug 28, 2016 5:01 AM in response to John Prokos
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 28, 2016 5:01 AM in response to John Prokos

    I think it is a bug. It must be fixed. Very annoying