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Show Invisible Files with this Simple Alfred Workflow

Posted by Matt Birchler
β€” 1 min read

I'll keep this short and sweet. You want to see invisible files in the Finder and you don't want to waste any time. All you have to do is run a Terminal command to show them and another one to hide them again (because you really don't want to see these all the time!).

The Easy Way: Alfred Workflows

This workflow will show all invisible files (trigger with the word "show") and this one will hide all invisible files again (trigger with "hide").

For those curious, each workflow will launch the Terminal app, run the command, restart the Finder, and close Terminal.

The Harder (but still easy) Way: Terminal Command

Show invisible files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Hide invisible files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

Just a friendly reminder that you'll need to restart the Finder for these changes to take effect. To do so, simply run:

killall Finder