UtilitiesIf you launch Terminal and run the command ls -al, you will notice that it displays more files than what you would see in finder.

That’s because files and directories that starts with a . are hidden (e.g: .DS_Store, .bash_history )

In order to view these files in finder, you need to run the following command

defaults write com.app.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

After running that command, you should then be able to view the hidden files and directories in finder.

To revert the changes you just made, you can run the following command

defaults delete com.app.Finder AppleShowAllFiles

Edwin is the founder and editor of Little Handy Tips and Wollongong Fitness. He is also the developer for the Google Custom Search WordPress plugin and Custom About Author WordPress plugin. Find out more about him here.