Need to hide a folder or two on a Mac? A while back we showed you how to make invisible folders and to even how to make hidden folders in Mac OS X, but now were going to demonstrate how to turn an existing folder into a hidden folder. How to Hide Folders in Mac OS X Hiding existing folders is fairly easy: Launch the Terminal, found in /Applications/Utilities/ or from Launchpad Type the following command: chflags hidden /path/to/folder/ When nished, close out of Terminal For example, to hide a folder in my home directory named Secrets the command would be: chflags hidden ~/Secrets/ The folder will immediately disappear from visibility, becoming hidden from the Finder. This includes everything contained within the folder as well, whether they are more les or other folders. If you want to truly hide the folder and its contents, take an extra step and exclude the folder from Spotlight indexing. This makes sure that none of the les inside of it can be found through the Spotlight search feature in OS X. While this hides folders from being visible in the GUI and will keep 95% of users unaware of the folders existence, keep in mind that practically anything is visible from the command line, and if an advanced user was keen or determined enough, they could probably track down the folder or its contents. Access the Hidden Folders in Mac OS X Now that the folder is hidden, here is how to access it: From the Mac OS X desktop, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the Go To Folder window Enter the same path to the folder as you used when hiding it: 43k Like Like Follow Follow @OSXDaily @OSXDaily Subscribe to OSXDaily
Find us on Facebook OS X Daily 43,527 people like OS X Daily. Facebook social plugin Like Like OSXDaily + 5,093 Follow +1 Search Home Mac OS X iPhone iPad Tips & Tricks Jailbreak News iOS Hide Folders in Mac OS X http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/06/hide-folders-mac/ 1 of 7 09/07/14 10:47 AM Youll now be inside the hidden folder, able to open, copy, move, and use the contained les and folders as usual. Unhiding the Folder in Mac OS X If you no longer want the folder to be hidden anymore, heres what to do: As before, launch the Terminal application Enter the following command: chflags nohidden /path/to/folder/ Close the Terminal As an example, to unhide a folder on the users desktop named Secret Folder the command would be: chflags nohidden ~/Desktop/Secret Folder/ Again, the folder will become immediately visible to the desktop. If you blocked the contents from Spotlight, you may want to remove it from there as well to be able to nd and locate as usual. If you read OSXDaily with any regularity, some of this will be familiar to you for good reason. The chags nohidden command is the same thing we use to show the Library directory in OS X Lion, and accessing the folder once it is hidden is done the same way we access the user Library folder when its hidden as well. 43,527 people like this. Like Like Enjoy this tip? Subscribe to the OSXDaily newsletter to get more of our great Apple tips, tricks, and important news delivered to your inbox! Enter your email address below: Subscribe Related articles: Hide Anything from Spotlight in Mac OS X with the Library Folder Quickly Hide a File in Mac OS X Using chags Hide the Toolbar in Mac OS X Finder Windows Hide Folders in Mac OS X http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/06/hide-folders-mac/ 2 of 7 09/07/14 10:47 AM Show the Path Bar in Mac OS X to Work Better in the Finder File System Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Command Line, Mac OS X, Tips & Tricks 25 Comments Comments RSS Feed Fernando says: January 6, 2012 at 1:24 pm I think the last Terminal command typed should be: chags nohidden ~/Desktop/Secret\ Folder/ Reply Brian Yang says: January 6, 2012 at 1:37 pm For privacy I wish I had known about this in the days where I shared a computer with my family! Nowadays, this allows ultraminimalism without disabling everything in entirety. Reply Ren Dubois says: January 6, 2012 at 11:03 pm Excellent use of chags Reply A.J. says: January 6, 2012 at 11:15 pm Not able to hide an existing folder. If I have an existing folder in my desktop entitled AJ is this how i would type it? chags hidden ~/desktop/AJ/ thanks Reply BT says: January 7, 2012 at 12:53 pm Close, itd be : chags hidden ~/Desktop/AJ/ capitalization is important Reply Brian says: January 9, 2012 at 9:52 pm Capitalization isnt actually that important, unless youre on an HFS+ Case Senstitive volume. Reply James says: January 7, 2012 at 10:29 am I think a better way to keep content on your Mac private is to create a small encrypted disk image with a password. Even if someone does snoop, they cant open it. On mine, I change the icon to a regular folder and name it something boring so it doesnt stand out. Instructions on Apples site: Hide Folders in Mac OS X http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/06/hide-folders-mac/ 3 of 7 09/07/14 10:47 AM http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1578 Reply EldRick says: January 7, 2012 at 12:35 pm Its a lot easier to just use InvisibleX Reply Password Protect Zip Files in Mac OS X says: January 7, 2012 at 2:10 pm [...] Adding an additional layer of security to a hidden folder [...] Reply Patirck says: January 8, 2012 at 2:56 am Does this work in Tiger? I have an old PPC MacMini that Im using as a ler server with two external drives. I was wanting to hide some folders on those external volumes. When I use the command chags hidden /path it comes back with chags: invalid ag: hidden. Reply er says: January 8, 2012 at 7:11 pm Tiger might not run Bash in the terminal by default. Launch terminal and type: env If one of the lines says:SHELL=/BIN/TCSH then you need to change it. If you need to change the shell, start Netinfo Manager in /Applications/Utilities. Then click on users and then your short username. Replace /bin/tcsh in the shell entry with /bin/bash. Save your changes, logout and back in. After all this it may still not work because chags may or may not work in Tiger. Good luck Reply tripleman says: January 8, 2012 at 10:10 am I dont think that excluding the folder from spotlight is a great idea. It doesnt take a genius to just look at spotlights preferences to see what you dont want to be found. Reply Jim says: January 9, 2012 at 6:57 am Hideaway.app much easier and faster. Reply A.J. says: January 10, 2012 at 2:24 am Thank you BT, that worked. OK now my problem is that Now that the folder is hidden, I can not access it. Per the instructionsNow that the folder is hidden, here is how to access it: From the Mac OS X desktop, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the Go To Folder window. Enter the same path to the folder as you used when hiding it: When I type the le path I use to hide the folder my result says, le can not be found Reply Hide Folders in Mac OS X http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/06/hide-folders-mac/ 4 of 7 09/07/14 10:47 AM Andy says: April 23, 2012 at 2:42 am I hope you are not trying with the whole chags thing again in Go To Folder. Just type the path of folder i.e. the chags command without chags hidden. TIP: After hiding the folder see the command, leave the rst two words (chags hidden) and copy the rest somewhere to remember. Because that is what you need to type in Go To Folder every time you need those hidden les. Reply Andy says: April 23, 2012 at 2:25 am In the example given to access the hidden folder you should use ~/Secrets/ in the Go To Folder Reply Cabel says: April 26, 2012 at 6:10 pm The only problem is that all you have to do to see a hidden le or check if there are any hidden les is enter defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES in a command line. Is there any way to make it hidden from even that? Reply Fernando says: April 30, 2012 at 11:11 am Hi, I have a usb drive that I use for work (and winxp), so I got infected with something that change the folders on the usb: all the folders are transformed into a .exe (with the virus on it) and the real folder become hidden. (The trick is if you double click on it, it will show you the les they still are in the real-hidden folder AND execute the virus on your pc) But, if use this command, I can unhidden this real folder, until I dismount this drive: next time I mount this drive, folders will be hidden again. How can I permanently nohiden a folder in a usb drive? Of course, the rst thing is to wipe my pc Reply Quickly Hide a File in Mac OS X Using chags says: July 19, 2012 at 6:00 pm [...] to quickly hide a le from prying eyes? Just like you can hide folders, you can hide individual les too. Here is how to do this using the command line tool [...] Reply shiningjade says: July 26, 2012 at 11:36 am the chags actually works. however, it is unlock the damned folder, but not the contains. my mate gave me a single folder which contains a considerable amounts of sub folder. And each sub folder has bunch of les. do i have to unhide the damned les one by one ? Reply SyberKnight says: October 25, 2012 at 2:34 pm Hide Folders in Mac OS X http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/06/hide-folders-mac/ 5 of 7 09/07/14 10:47 AM Access the Dictionary in iOS to Quickly Look Up Words Mac Setups: Three Decades of Apple, From the SE/30 to the iPad 2 can this also be done to the root level System and Library folders? Reply jahed hossain says: January 12, 2013 at 11:57 am very good Reply calvin says: February 27, 2013 at 1:55 pm this is all very helpful, but when i hide the folder with everything in it the les still come up if i merely go to all my les. Reply Rahul says: January 15, 2014 at 6:58 am How can I add space in Terminal. whenever I try hiding my folder New Files it doesnt work. Thank You Reply IT says: January 15, 2014 at 9:26 am For placing spaces functionally in the terminal, use quotes or a backslash in the command string, like so: New Files or New\ Files Reply Leave a Reply Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Submit Comment
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