federicogartner
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: How can I turn invisible files to visible? Attention, NOT 'show/hide' them in finder, that's easy.

'chflags hidden' and 'chflags no hidden' command on terminal works fine ONLY if the files are stored on my system drive. I have a lot of files on an external HD with 1TB of invisible files I want to make visible.

 

I already tried copying one file to my Desktop and making it visible from there, transferring it back to my external drive. It worked well but I definitively don't want to do the same with more than 1TB of files. (funny: the system didn't allowed me to replace the invisible file for the new one, I had to move it to the trash first)

 

Thanks for your help

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Dec 16, 2015 7:39 AM

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federicogartner

Q: How can I turn invisible files to visible? Attention, NOT 'show/hide' them in finder, that's easy.

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  • by Niel,

    Niel Niel Dec 16, 2015 7:44 AM in response to federicogartner
    Level 10 (312,625 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 16, 2015 7:44 AM in response to federicogartner

    Choose Utilities from the Finder’s Go menu, open the AppleScript Editor, and run the following:

     

    tell application "Finder" to quit

    try

    if (do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles") is not "1" then error

    do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 0"

    on error

    do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1"

    end try

    delay 2

    tell application "Finder" to run

     

    If you change your mind later, run the script again.

     

    (137259)