Show hidden files in Finder

I use DesktopUtility. It's a menubar app that will allow you to, easily, toggle the visiblity of hidden files and the user Library. Sounds like you might find it handy.

No need to spend any money to see invisible files and folders.

To view all files on your Mac, open the Terminal and enter the following two lines, pressing Enter after each one.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

When you're done, type in the same two lines, except change TRUE to FALSE to return file viewing to normal.

You note that you've done this, but say the OS doesn't show files that start with a period. It should. I see two such files on my desktop.

Perhaps I should have noted that DesktopUtility is free. I wouldn't spend money for that functionality, either. 😉 I like the convenience of having one simple click in the menubar, versus playing around with terminal. To each their own...

TinkerTool and Secrets are two more free utilities that offer easy ways to toggle hidden file viewing.

http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html

http://secrets.blacktree.com

Perhaps I should have noted that DesktopUtility is free. I wouldn't spend money for that functionality, either. 😉

Me either. Didn't notice that one was free. Everything seemed to have a cost on the various apps.

I suppose that it doesn't make any difference whether I enter TRUE or YES, does it? And likewise, FALSE or NO?

Correct. True, Yes, and 1 all do the same thing.

For the opposite, False, No and 0 are the same.

I've also been told to hold down the "option" key & right-click on the Finder icon & click "relaunch". I suppose that it doesn't make any difference whether I relaunch or kill the finder, does it? If I kill the Finder, I reopen it to view the hidden files, right?

Also correct. Doesn't matter which way you do it. The Finder automatically relaunches itself whether you kill it in Terminal, or relaunch it from the Dock (which is really the same as kill then relaunch).

I did see ".DS_Store" on the Desktop, but I didn't see any of the hidden mp3 files on the flash drive.

Now that is weird. You should see all hidden files and folders on all drives. Unless the Flash drive is formatted for Windows (exFAT, FAT16 or FAT32) and OS X doesn't treat it the same way.

TinkerTool and Secrets are two more free utilities that offer easy ways to toggle hidden file viewing.

Yup, there's lots of free utilities to do the same thing. OnyX will also toggle hidden items on and off.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't see those files on a FAT32 drive. It shouldn't make a difference. Haven't tested it here to see if I get the same results.

For both systems to see the contents of the flash drive without having to pay for third party software for one system or the other, it would have to be FAT32 or exFAT.

I've been too busy here to see if I can duplicate the issue. Hopefully, someone with more time can experiment and get back to you with a suggestion.

Try this:

In Terminal:

dot_clean <flash drive>

(In Terminal, type: dot_clean, then space, then drag the flash drive from the Desktop to the Terminal window, then press enter)

NAME

dot_clean -- Merge ._* files with corresponding native files.

I don't think you want to do this. When you copy Mac files to a FAT formatted drive, it creates two files. For example:

foo.tif

._foo.tif

The second file is the Mac's resource fork, which has to be saved as a separate file since any DOS/Windows formatted drive has only one data fork. When you copy the file back to your Mac, OS X automatically combines the two again into an HFS+ file format. You don't see those from your Mac because they start with a period, but you will see them on a Windows computer.

This isn't the case with your files. They are not named like that, and if you run that Terminal command, it may destroy your audio tracks.