Create a Hidden Folder in Mac OS X
You can create a folder that is hidden from the default Finder GUI view by taking advantage of Mac OS X’s unix underpinnings, here’s how:
Create the secret folder
* Launch the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities)
* At the command line, type:
mkdir .hiddenfolder
Feel free to replace the name hiddenfolder with anything else, leaving spaces and special characters out of the name will make it easier to deal with in the future.
Access the secret folder
* Now click back to the Finder, and hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the ‘Go to Folder’ dialog box
* Type in the full path to the folder you just created, replacing ‘username’ and ‘hiddenfolder’ with your username and folder name, respectively:
/users/username/.hiddenfolder/
* Your hidden folder will now be opened in the Finder, you can drag and drop whatever you want into the directory
Making existing folders hidden and making hidden folders visible again
You can actually make any folder invisible from the Finder (and most apps) just by adding a period to the front of the name, you can do this with existing folders via the command line:
mv Folder .Folder
And you can make any invisible or hidden folder visible again by reversing this and removing the period from the front:
mv .Folder Folder
Note that you can’t enter a period in front of a folder or file name in the Mac OS X Finder, if you try you will be presented with this dialogue box telling you the dot “.” is reserved for the Mac OS X system software:
Setting Mac OS X to display hidden folders
You can actually set Mac OS X to show hidden files by issuing a command in the Terminal. This will expose your hidden folder completely within the Finder, but you’ll also see tons of other important system files and folders. This is generally not recommended to keep activated as it is both confusing to many users and it makes it easy to accidentally delete important files.
Notes on hidden folders
Remember that these folders are not hidden completely, they are just not visible from the Mac OS X Finder. Many applications won’t see the folder either, but various FTP programs like Transmit have the option to show invisible files and the folder would be visible to those applications. Likewise, the folder would always be visible via the command line to anyone who typed the ls command and added the -a flag, signifying to display all files, like so: ls -a
If you have Apple’s Developer Tools installed you can use a utility called ‘setfile’ which allows you to set any directory or file as invisible, you can read more about hiding files and folders with setfile in Mac OS X, but the limitations on visibility are practically identical to the above technique: file is invisible from the Finder but visible with ls -a or certain applications.
Great tip!
Further to using the Cmd+Shift+G function in the GUI for opening the hidden folder. You can also use the ‘open’ command from Terminal.
E.g. open .hiddenfolder will cause finder to open a new window on that directory.
In addition to this, you can use the ‘open’ command to launch Applications!
E.g. open -a “iTunes”
Type the exact name of the Application within the quotes as it appears in the Applications folder.
You can even pass arguments (to applications that take them) using this method.
E.g. open -a “TextEdit” /Users/user/Documents/document.rtf
This will open the file “document.rtf” in TextEdit.
Have fun
Also forgot to mention.
You can use “tab autocompletion” with the Cmd+shift+G functionality – nifty!
Right,
do you guys know how to make invisible folder out of invisible folder?
4-way window pane should do the trick.
[...] Want to hide some files in plain sight? You can make a folder invisible to the eye, but not to the click with this neat trick. I learned this in 6th grade to hide files and apps from prying eyes, and despite it’s simplicity it worked to store games, movies, and pictures on school computers without anyone knowing where they were kept. Believe it or not it works, and if you have limited access to the Terminal it beats using the period method to hide folders. [...]
i put my documents in my new .hiddenfolder, but as soon as i tried to re open , the folder finder said ” unable to find folder”
PLEASE help!
i put my documents in my new .hiddenfolder, but as soon as i tried to re open , the folder finder said ” unable to find folder”
PLEASE help!!
Thanks a lot, this is just perfect for my needs!
[...] folder or two on a Mac? A while back we showed you how to make invisible folders and to even how to make hidden folders in Mac OS X, but now we’re going to demonstrate how to turn an existing folder into a hidden [...]