how do you show hidden files

Show Hidden Files in Mac OS X

Launch Terminal (in Utilities) and copy/paste the following line into the terminal window:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Hit return. The copy/paste the following line:

killall -9 Finder

Hit return. You will see the finder relaunch and any invisible files should be visible.

Note. To reverse this you do the exact same thing except the TRUE on end of the first (defaults) command should be FALSE.

What did you expect to happen in the terminal? All it does is set the setting to true. And if you killall the finder the finder will restart and all the invisibles will be shown where ever they are in the finder. But nothing will appear on the terminal except the next prompt for input.

"The line that was already there"

Is the prompt that shows you what directory you are at (your User Home directory), and invites you to enter the next command.

If you did not get an error message, you did the operation correctly. You can either enter the second command, or do a Restart, and the Finder should then show you all files, including invisible files.

If this makes you queasy, type:

ls -al

to get a list of all directories and files at this level. Then you will know it is alive and listening to you.

This answers a quesion I was going to ask.

However, where do I go to find 'Utilities'?

The Utilities folder is inside the /Applications folder

(the slash indicates "starting at top-level in the directory hierarchy".)

Thanks for that. Done!

TinkerTool is my choice for this. It's free and is simpler than using the Terminal.