How to show hidden files in Finder (OS X 10.9)?

MJAtlas wrote:

Yes, it is.

I'd like to agree with you, but then we would just both be wrong. And I'm assuming we're talking about Lion or later btw.

I'm talking about All OS X. OnyX is a third-party product. It is not distributed in any way by Apple.

I can prove it to you right now, but you'll need a good backup or another hard drive to use. Boot into Recovery, Open Disk Utiltiy and Erase your Hard Drive, then install Mavericks on that bare drive. Then, search the entire hard drive and you won't find it.

You've just been migrating it from one OS to the next as you upgraded.

MJAtlas wrote:

I'm good, thanks guys 🙂

I'll leave it at this -- If you don't have it, download it.

Download it? You said it was part of the OSX. Please refrain from posting misinformation. 😉

Merry Christmas

Pete

Thanks, already tried that. Surprisingly it didn’t work.

Everything is looking fine after firing up:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1

But after:

killall Finder

the .plist content seems to be reverted.

It looks like I messed up something with my permissions. I’m going to check the permissions of the corresponding files from the test user account where it is working.

MJAtlas wrote:

I'll leave it at this -- If you don't have it, download it.

No need for a 3rd party app, just open Terminal and:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true

killall Finder

Barney-15E wrote:

What is driving this tireless yearning to see the hidden files?

I've rarely had a need to see the hidden files. I've edited quite a few of them, but I never needed to see them to do that. Maybe there is another way to accomplish what you want.

Handling dotfiles is a pretty common task when doing web development. Of course I’m using the terminal and have a texteditor which is showing dotfiles. But from time to time I just like to see these files within the finder ; ]

MJAtlas wrote:

You guys are completely nuts - Just use OnyX -- t's built in to every mac os.

One check box, vs whatever insanity you're trying to script..

Yes maybe you need to be nuts to omit tools like Onyx. But why should I use GUI-Tools when things are so much faster with bash (scripts). See https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx to get the idea ; ]

Tony T1 wrote:

MJAtlas wrote:

I'll leave it at this -- If you don't have it, download it.

No need for a 3rd party app, just open Terminal and:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true

killall Finder

I don't believe MJAtlas would be capable of understanding how to do that. Luckily for us he left the thread before making any more ridiculous claims. 😉

On with business......

Merry Christmas

Pete

Tony T1 wrote:

Try re-setting Finder Preferences by dragging ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist to the Trash

then in Terminal defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1

Note: this will reset any Finder Prefereces you set in Finder->Preferences

Okay. com.apple.finder.plist has the same permissions at both users. BUT there is an additional file at the user where I’m not able to change the settings for hidden files.

It is called com.apple.finder.plist.lockfile and I can guess by the filename that this file is causing my problems.

I have know idea where it came from …

Do anyone of you know what’s the matter with this file?

Best regards and merry christmas

Okay. I guess I have to give up.

Deleting the lockfile and rebooting the system changed nothing.

Still the same behavior:

1.

$ defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

FALSE

2.

$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE

3.

$ defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

1

4.

$ killall Finder

Finder restarts but is not showing any hidden files 😟

5.

$ defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

1

6.

$ defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

FALSE

Also tried it with:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

I also trashed com.apple.finder.plist another time.

I’m absolutely clueless. Seems that my user is messed up. But there are really no other problems with that user. Strange 😮

FYI, in Mavericks, everything you pass to OS X using Terminal is case-sensitive.

This is what I used and it works on OS X 10.9.1 (note that finder has a lowercare "f"):

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true

And don't forget (and this Finder has an uppercase "F"):

killall Finder

And to undo it:

defaults delete com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

Sorry about the coloring, didn't think copy and paste from my terminal into this would do that. 😝 Too lazy to turn off HTML mode and remove the formattings. Why one finder requires a lowercase "f" and another Finder requires an uppercase "F", I will never know (and don't care much as long as things work). Hope this helps everyone.

-David

lisdavid89 wrote:

Sorry about the coloring, didn't think copy and paste from my terminal into this would do that. 😝 Too lazy to turn off HTML mode and remove the formattings.

When you paste, instead of ⌘V, use ⌥⇧⌘V

lisdavid89 wrote:

FYI, in Mavericks, everything you pass to OS X using Terminal is case-sensitive.

That’s not the point for my specific problem. And your answer is already given on page 1 posting 4 😉

Thanks anyway.

Hmm, maybe this has changed since you wrote this, but I found that using TRUE and FALSE works just fine, also with killall Finder.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

I am not using killall Finder, but instead ALT-right-click on Finder and click Relaunch, as I almost find that faster. Restarting between showing and hiding hidden files is not something I would call a "solution".

I am using 10.9.2 and it is working flawlessly without the need to reboot.

I have found that logging out and loggin in again works just fine, and itts quicker than restarting.

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That is a really silly username isn't it? To bad Apple wont let me change it :/

I had to manually enter the setting in the plist file.

After running "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1", I opened the file and confirmed that the entry had not been written to the file.

so I entered it manually, then restarted Finder. That finally worked.