How to hide files and folders in OS X – Guide
Who wants to see everything everywhere all the time? On a Mac, however, you don’t need to hide folders inside other folders. Learn how to hide folders in the right place on Mac, and How to still open hidden folders.
How to hide files and folders in OS X
Enable FileVault
This is the simplest way to encrypt your hard drive. FileVault will encrypt your entire hard drive, so someone will need your password to access your content.
Hide them in the Library
To hide a folder in OS X Mountain Lion:
- Open the Finder by clicking on the icon in the Dock or by pressing Command+F.
- In the Finder, click on the Go menu and select Library.
- If your Library folder is hidden, hold down the Option key when clicking on Library to reveal it.
- Navigate to any folder you want to hide and create a new folder there (or drag files or folders into it).
- Click on the newly created hidden folder to open it and then press Command+H (or click on the disclosure triangle next to the name of your hidden folder). ..
Put them in another user account
Hide the files and folders in the user’s Users & Groups preferences pane.
Make file/folder hidden 1
In Terminal, type chflags hidden and drag a folder or file you want to hide into the Terminal window; you can still access these hidden files and folders by calling the Go To Folder dialog box (Command-Shift-G) and typing in their full paths. To unhide them, go back to Terminal and type chflags no hidden followed by the path of the file or folder.
Leave the file/folder hidden 2
In Terminal, type mv filename .filename. This moves the original folder to one with a dot at the beginning of the name; by default, folders with dots at the beginning of their names are hidden in OS X. You can also type mkdir .hiddenfolder to create a new hidden folder. In both cases, you can re-access the hidden folder using the Go to Folder option.
hide in plain sight
To avoid suspicion, rename your files to something innocuous like January 2013 cat videos. LOL! ..
Set visibility attribute to invisible
If you have Apple Developer Tools installed, you can change the visibility of a file or folder by entering the command set file a V followed by the name of the file or folder. This sets its visibility attribute to “invisible”; you can undo this by repeating the command with a lowercase v. ..
Final note
How to hide files and folders in OS X In order to hide files and folders in OS X, you will need to first create a new folder and then add files and folders into it. To create a new folder, open Finder and click on the New Folder button. In the resulting window, enter a name for your new folder and click on the OK button. To add files and folders into your new folder, open Finder and click on the Add Folder button. In the resulting window, enter a name for your new folder and click on the OK button. When you have added all of your files and folders into your new folder, close Finder.
