- 2020-4-6 The User Library folder is hidden by default in MacOS Catalina, MacOS Mojave, macOS High Sierra, and macOS Sierra, but some advanced users may wish to show and access the /Library/ folder, which contains.
- Conclusions: How to Hide or Unhide Files and Folders on Mac. Of course, you can always use the Terminal to hide and unhide files and folders on your Mac, but the process seems to be long and uncomfortable. Moreover, you don’t have a list of all the hidden.
- You can display hidden files on your Mac using the Funter app, an AppleScript, a Terminal command or a keyboard shortcut. If you are looking for the easiest solution to manage your hidden files you may want to use the free Funter tool. Funter will give you access to hidden files and folders but also will help you search for hidden.
2020-3-31 How to Unhide and Make Library Folder Visible in macOS Sierra. The Library folder for the users on a Mac is always hidden as Apple just doesn’t want you to access it as it thinks you don’t need access to it. However, macOS does provide an option to see this folder.
The user library folder in Mac OS is usually hidden. If you are on mac OS Sierra, Mac OS High Sierra and Mac OS Mojave, you will not be able to see the library. But when you come across the need to access this folder, you will start wondering how to find library on Mac. We will let you know about the steps that you have to follow in order to locate the Library folder on Mac.
Now you must be wondering why the ~/Library folder in Mac is hidden. This folder contains a lot of important files and data about the Mac user accounts. The data helps the proper functionality of the apps that you have installed on the Mac.
Therefore, it is recommended for you to keep the ~/Library folder untouched. If you are an ordinary Mac user, there’s no valid reason for you to gain access to the content that is available in this folder. Therefore, you are encouraged to keep it untouched at all times.
Read more:How to Uninstall Apps on Mac?
But when you come across the need to access the ~/Library folder for any reason, you will need to figure out how to find hidden library folder on Mac. Here are the steps that you will have to follow in order to get the job done.
Accessing the Library folder in macOS Sierra and macOS Mojave
If you don’t want your Mac to always show the Library folder, but you only need to access it for one time, you can think about accessing it through Go Menu. If you can’t find Library on Mac, you need to follow the below mentioned steps to get the job done.
- From the macOS Finder, visit “Go” menu.
- Now you need to select “Library” from the list.
- It is also possible for you to enter Command + Shift + G from the macOS Finder, so that you will be able to jump to the ~/Library folder immediately.
In case if you are in an older version of Mac OS, you need to hold down the Option Key, instead of Shift Key.
How to show the ~/Library file in macOS Sierra and macOS Mojave
When you come across the need to access the ~/Library file on a regular basis, you will need to make it show at all times. Changing some of the settings in your Mac will assist you to get the job done. Here are the steps that you have to follow for that.
- First of all, you should visit macOS “Finder”.
- Then you must access user’s “Home” folder.
- From there, you need to pull down “View” menu and then select “Show View Options”.
- You should now select Show Library Folder in the settings option.
This will help you to display the ~/Library folder at all times. However, you must keep in mind that the settings change you do is personal to the user accounts. If you log in to your Mac from another user account, it will not be possible for you to see this change.
You will also be able to use the command line in order to reveal the ~/Library directory. You can go to the terminal and enter the following:
Now you will be able to see the Library folder on your Mac.
Your Mac has a secret. Thousands of them in fact, in the form of hidden files and folders lurking on its hard drive or SSD. Don’t worry, though. These files and folders are all supposed to be there. In fact, many of them are essential.
Many of these files are in your Mac’s main Library folder or in the ~/Library folder, which is in your User folder. Both these Library folders are hidden, but inside them are folders and files that hold things like preferences for apps.
In this article, we’ll tell you how you can view hidden files on your Mac and make your Library folder visible.
What are the hidden files on Mac?
The hidden files are a throwback to macOS’ Unix roots. In fact, the convention of naming them starting with a “.” comes from Unix. For that reason, you can’t use a “.” at the start of a regular file name, otherwise OS X will hide it.
The files themselves contain data like access rights and privileges for files and folders, application support files, and preferences.
There are a number of reasons files and folders are hidden. Mostly, though, it’s because they contain data critical to the smooth running of your Mac and that you shouldn’t interfere with. In addition, there’s no real reason for most users to see or access them. Also, if they were all visible, your Mac would look horribly cluttered.
How to view hidden files on Mac
Before you make your Mac show hidden files, it’s important to remember they’ve been hidden for a reason. The data they contain could cause havoc if you delete or alter it and don’t know what you’re doing.
If your goal in viewing, for example ~/Library is so you can manually delete application support files for a program you’ve uninstalled, consider using a dedicated uninstaller like CleanMyMac X. That will make it easy to remove all the files associated with an application with one click. You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.
CleanMyMac X will also allow you to get rid of all the hidden files you no longer need. Many of these files are created and used then not needed anymore. They just sit there clogging up your hard drive. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac, identifies this system junk and allows you to quickly and easily get rid of it, potentially several gigabytes of disk space.
If you still want to view hidden files on your Mac, you need to go to the Finder and do the following:
Show Hidden Folders Mac
- Open a new Finder window and click on the name of your Mac under ‘Devices’ in the sidebar.
- Click on Macintosh HD, or whatever you’ve called your startup drive if you’ve renamed it.
- Press Command-Shift-. (period). You should now see lots of files and folders who’s name starts with “.” become visible.
- To re-hide the files and folders, hold down Command-Shift-. again.
How to view your Mac’s ~/Library folder
There are a couple of methods for making your ~/Library folder visible. Here’s the simplest:
- Click on the Finder in the Dock.
- Open a new Finder window and navigate to your user folder (Tip: if it’s not in the sidebar, go to the Finder menu, choose Preferences, click Sidebar and check the box next to your Home folder)
- Click on the Go menu.
- Hold down the Option (Alt) key.
- You should see that in the dropdown menu, Library appears below Home. Click on it.
Alternatively, do this to view your Library folder:
- Click on the Finder in the Dock.
- Click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.
- In the window that opens, type “~/Library”
With both these methods, your Library folder will disappear again when you close the Finder window. It’s easy enough to run through the steps above again to make it visible again when you need to, but if you want it permanently accessible, there are a couple of ways to do it.
The quickest is to drag the Library folder to the Finder’s sidebar. That will create a shortcut to it that will persist. If you want to keep ~/Library visible but don’t want it clogging up the sidebar in Finder windows, do this:
- Click on the Finder in the Dock.
- Click on the View menu and choose Show View Options.
- Check the box labelled Show Library Folder at the bottom of the window.
How to make macOS show hidden files using Terminal
If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can use the Terminal command line interface to view hidden files and folders. Here’s how to do it:
- Open Terminal from the Utilities folder in Applications, or by searching for it using Spotlight. You can also use the Go menu in the Finder to go directly to the Utilities folder.
- Type, or copy and paste, this command: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true
- Press Return
- Type: killall Finder
To hide the files again, repeat the above steps, but replace ‘true’ with ‘false’ at the end of step 2.
How to hide any file or folder using Terminal
Now that you know how to view hidden files and folders on your Mac, you may be wondering how you can hide other files or folders, to keep them away from prying eyes. There are a number of third-party applications and utilities that offer to do this for you, but you can do it yourself in Terminal, like this:
- Launch Terminal.
- Type: chflags hidden
- Press the spacebar.
- Drag the file or folder you want to hide from the Finder onto the Terminal window.
- You’ll see the path to the file or folder displayed in Terminal after the command you typed.
- Hit Return to execute the command.
The file or folder you dragged onto the Terminal window will now be hidden. To see it again, use one of the methods described above to see hidden files.
To make the file visible permanently again, use the steps above, but in step 2 type: chflags nohidden
As you can see, viewing hidden files and folders on your Mac is very straightforward. There are a number of ways to do it, and you can make them visible temporarily or permanently.
Library Hidden Folder Mac Os
However, just because you can view hidden files, doesn’t mean you should — the files are usually hidden because accidentally deleting them or altering them could cause chaos on your Mac. So, while it’s fine to have a peek, don’t do anything with the hidden files unless you know what you’re doing.
If you want to declutter your Mac or uninstall applications, use a dedicated application like CleanMyMac X. It will safely remove all useless files, add-ons, broken login items, caches, large and old files you didn't know about. Most likely, you won't even need to look for hidden files — CleanMyMac will do all the job for you.
Show Library Folder
We also showed that many of those files are stored in Library folders, including the one in your User folder, ~/Library. That folder is hidden by default, but you can view it or make it permanently visible using the techniques described above.