Comments on: Hide Folders in Mac OS X

By: calvin

calvin — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:55:13 +0000

this is all very helpful, but when i hide the folder with everything in it the files still come up if i merely go to all my files.

By: jahed hossain

jahed hossain — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:57:21 +0000

very good

By: SyberKnight

SyberKnight — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:34:05 +0000

can this also be done to the root level “System” and “Library” folders?

By: shiningjade

shiningjade — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:36:34 +0000

the chflags actually works.
however, it is unlock the damned folder, but not the contains.
my mate gave me a single folder which contains a considerable amounts of sub folder. And each sub folder has bunch of files.

do i have to unhide the damned files one by one ?

By: Quickly Hide a File in Mac OS X Using chflags

Quickly Hide a File in Mac OS X Using chflags — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 01:00:08 +0000

[...] to quickly hide a file from prying eyes? Just like you can hide folders, you can hide individual files too. Here is how to do this using the command line tool [...]

By: Fernando

Fernando — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:11:07 +0000

Hi, I have a usb drive that I use for work (and winxp), so I got infected with something that change the folders on the usb: all the folders are transformed into a .exe (with the virus on it) and the real folder become ‘hidden’. (The trick is if you double click on it, it will show you the files —they still are in the real-hidden folder— AND execute the virus on your pc)
But, if use this command, I can unhidden this real folder, until I dismount this drive: next time I mount this drive, folders will be hidden —again. How can I permanently ‘nohiden’ a folder in a usb drive?
Of course, the first thing is to ‘wipe’ my pc…

By: Cabel

Cabel — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:10:37 +0000

The only problem is that all you have to do to see a hidden file or check if there are any hidden files is enter
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES in a command line. Is there any way to make it hidden from even that?

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:42:42 +0000

I hope you are not trying with the whole chflags thing again in Go To Folder. Just type the path of folder i.e. the chflags command without “chflags hidden”.

TIP:
After hiding the folder see the command, leave the first two words (“chflags hidden”) and copy the rest somewhere to remember. Because that is what you need to type in “Go To Folder” every time you need those hidden files.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:25:01 +0000

In the example given to access the hidden folder you should use
~/Secrets/
in the Go To Folder

By: A.J.

A.J. — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:24:58 +0000

Thank you BT, that worked. OK now my problem is that Now that the folder is hidden, I can not access it.

Per the instructions…Now that the folder is hidden, here is how to access it:
From the Mac OS X desktop, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the “Go To Folder” window. Enter the same path to the folder as you used when hiding it:

When I type the file path I use to hide the folder my result says, file can not be found

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:52:20 +0000

Capitalization isn’t actually that important, unless you’re on an HFS+ Case – Senstitive volume.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:57:12 +0000

Hideaway.app – much easier and faster.

By: er

er — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:11:27 +0000

Tiger might not run Bash in the terminal by default.
Launch terminal and type: env
If one of the lines says:SHELL=/BIN/TCSH
then you need to change it.

If you need to change the shell, start Netinfo Manager in /Applications/Utilities. Then click on users and then your short username. Replace /bin/tcsh in the shell entry with /bin/bash. Save your changes, logout and back in.

After all this it may still not work because chflags may or may not work in Tiger.
Good luck

By: tripleman

tripleman — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:10:48 +0000

I don’t think that excluding the folder from spotlight is a great idea. It doesn’t take a genius to just look at spotlight’s preferences to see what you don’t want to be found.

By: Patirck

Patirck — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:56:18 +0000

Does this work in Tiger? I have an old PPC MacMini that I’m using as a filer server with two external drives. I was wanting to hide some folders on those external volumes. When I use the command “chflags hidden /path…” it comes back with “chflags: invalid flag: hidden”.