How to make "hidden" folders

yes, you can make folder/files hidden.

this is done as follows. open terminal (it's in application/utilities) and type

chflags hidden

do not press enter yet. press space. then drag the folder you want to hide to the terminal window.

the resulting line should look like this
\\
chflags hidden path/to/folder
\\
where path/to/folder is the unix path to the folder you want to hide.

press enter. that will hide the folder.

to unhide it use

\\
chflags nohidden path/to/folder

placing a "." (period in front of the folder will hide it in finder). when you need to see it, there are programs such as tinker tool you can use to reset finder to see hidden folders.

You can also create symbolic links to those folders and put them somewhere convenient such as documents folder to access them without having to reset finder.

renaming folders with the period "." in front will require the terminal.app command line command "mv", example:
sudo mv /users/joe/newfolder /users/joe/.newfolder

All of this is well and good, but most apps allow you to change your data folder location.
You could for instance relocate your itunes data folder someplace else.

Remember, if you make a folder invisible any folder inside that folder is hidden from finder as well.
Let's say you want to make itunes folder invisible.
the default location is: /users/joe/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/
to make hidden: /users/joe/.Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ #changing Music to .Music to hide itunes data folders#
You will have to change the location on itunes preferences or simply create a symbolic link called "Music" pointing to ".Music".
eg: sudo ln -s /Users/joe/.Music /Users/joe/Music #this makes the link Music that points to .Music#

You can make copies of the "Music" symbolic link normally and paste them wherever you want to easily access your hidden files and directories.

There is a program called Symbolic Linker that will make creating links easier.

Have fun!

Kj

I think the OP wants to hide some folders in ~/Library. those should not be renamed.

Itunes dat files are not in ~/library folder or subfolders

Kj

oops, sorry. still renaming things like the itunes folder means you have to point itunes to the new location. this can be tricky because a hidden folder will not show up in the dialog for choosing itunes library. same with iphoto etc. much simpler to put a hidden flag on something. that can't break anything and renaming might.

Very true that's why I recommended creating a symbolic link using the old folder name pointing to the new hidden folder eg: Music (link) > .Music folder. or simply relocate itunes data somewhere else.

Kj

I haven't tried seeing what happens setting the hidden flag. Quite possibly may be a simpler solution. I suppose you could still use aliases with them as well for convenient access.

Kj