Hide / Show hidden files & folders

Question

Level 1

4 points

Hide / Show hidden files & folders

I have an iMac 12,1 that I recently formatted and and gave a clean install of Yosemite. A few days ago I needed a file from a Time Machine backup from my Mac Mini. The folder it was in was hidden, so I used the following command to show the hidden folder. ----

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES , then killall Finder to restart the Finder. The hidden folder appeared up and I retrieved the files I wanted. When I type defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO, and restart the Finder, the files will not hide again.

I've tried restarting, repairing permissions on the drive, etc... The caveat to this is that my home folder is on another volume. I have the 250 GB SSD as the primary, but my home folder is huge, so I put it on the second internal hard drive. I think this may be the issue.  When I logon to an administrator account that has the home folder on the SSD, I can show and hide hidden folders without an issue.I tried moving my home folder back but the hidden files still showed

Is there a way to fix this without having to trash my account and start over ?

OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Nov 7, 2014 5:42 AM

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Answer 1

axeros

Level 1

99 points

Nov 7, 2014 5:59 AM in response to bblonshine

I just use the Hidden Files widget on the dashboard, just click on it to show hidden files in Finder, and click again to rehide. Very useful.

http://macinedu.wordpress.com/widgets/

Perhaps you can try it, it might solve your problem.

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Answer 2

bblonshine Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2014 6:50 AM in response to axeros

I've tried a few things like this but none of them work. OnyX worked just fine when I was logged in with the admin account. That account has the home folder on the same volume as the OS, and that's the only difference between that home folder and mine. OnyX doesn't work on my own account, at least for hiding files. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the folder being located on another drive.

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