
When you want to hide them again, you repeat the commands, replacing the value true with false. After that, you’ll be able to see all of your hidden files in Finder, along with any temporary files saved on your desktop. You’ll probably see your desktop icons disappear and then reappear. The Finder app will quit and relaunch itself. Once those commands have run, a couple of things will happen. Just type the following commands: defaults write AppleShowAllFiles true If you prefer working in Terminal, you can enable showing hidden files there. How to Show Hidden Files on Mac Using Terminal Click that, and your Mac’s ~/Library folder opens in a new Finder window. Hold down the Option key, and a new Library option shows up.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s all too easy to render your Mac unbootable or otherwise unusable if you play around with these files.

Mess something up, and you could find yourself forced to restore or complete a fresh macOS install. These include directories, libraries, and files that keep macOS running smoothly. You could even go so far as to brick your Mac if you accidentally delete or change one of these files. Some files on macOS need to stay safely where they are-unaltered. We’ll explain how you can view hidden files on your Mac, but first, let’s cover a few important details.
