Show system files / Show git ignore in osx

Question

By default it is not possible to see .gitignore files in osx. What is command to reveal these files?

score 182 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 17 '13 at 14:12

182

Open the terminal and type

on OS X 10.8:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

on OS X 10.9:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Then you must relaunch finder:

killall Finder

Any file name in OS X prefixed with a '.' is considered "hidden".

edited Dec 17 '13 at 14:12

steve84

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answered Jun 25 '12 at 20:59

Snarf

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This command will show all hidden files, is there a way to actually make the specific files always visible ? – Roland Feb 25 '14 at 08:05
See prodigitalson's answer. – Snarf Feb 25 '14 at 23:25
So there is no way to make it global unfortunatelly, thanks @snarf – Roland Feb 26 '14 at 10:07
Check out [this post](http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/115009/77639) on AskDifferent that has AppleScript for toggling hidden files. You can use Automator to create a service that runs that script and assign a keyboard shortcut to that service so you can quickly toggle on and off hidden files. – shim Aug 11 '14 at 21:53
This command isn't working on Yosemite or El Capitan.This is the right answer http://stackoverflow.com/a/29219426/1803863 – Andrew Oct 17 '15 at 19:56
Even after showing hidden files, if your are not able to found .gitignore file then simply in terminal type `touch .gitignore` in this directory. This will create new gitignore file. – Muhammad Umair May 20 '16 at 12:09
just out of curiosity, what is the difference between the commands for OS X 10.8 and 10.9? they look exactly the same, am I missing something? – Can Poyrazoğlu Sep 05 '16 at 08:38
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@CanPoyrazoğlu lower vs uppercase "F" in `com.apple.Finder` – Snarf Sep 05 '16 at 16:56
You can also restart the finder by going to Apple -> Force quite -> Finder -> restart – Maarten Jul 15 '17 at 18:56

score 77 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 19 '18 at 17:57

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You can use the shortcut in Finder:

Command + Shift + .

It will show the hidden files. To hide the files again, use the same shortcut.

edited Dec 19 '18 at 17:57

finefoot

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answered Dec 19 '18 at 15:48

DevAnuragGarg

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This is the only thing that worked for me (on catalina) – mwilson Feb 07 '20 at 19:12
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Thank you! This should be number 1 here. – Tim Feb 23 '22 at 11:43
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Thank god for this, deffo should be number 1 – Chris Sep 05 '22 at 18:57

score 54 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 10 '17 at 18:29

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⌘⇧. will toggle the AppleShowAllFiles setting.

This key combo will work from open/save dialogue boxes in all apps, not just the finder. Use this and you’ll never be confused when on someone else’s Mac or a new Mac, and you can avoid mucking around with defaults write.

I use the nemonic of “use a dot to show a dot file” to remember it, because of hidden dot files in unix.

answered Jul 10 '17 at 18:29

roosto

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Much better because of "Use this and you’ll never be confused when on someone else’s Mac or a new Mac". – Oded Breiner Mar 13 '18 at 09:23

score 18 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 26 '13 at 01:23

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if you just want to look at them you can always use the command line:

ls -al path/to/dir

If you want to always view all files from the finder you can do:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

If you just want to view a .gitignore from the finder you can:

chflags nohidden /path/to/dir/.gitignore

But youll have to call that command on every .gitignore its not global.

edited Jul 26 '13 at 01:23

patridge

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answered Jun 25 '12 at 21:00

prodigitalson

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score 16 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 23 '15 at 20:10

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(more recent, for 10.10.2:)

The above commands didn't work for me. I'm using OSX Yosemite: 10.10.2. This worked though:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true;
killall Finder;

Source: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/08/04/how-to-show-hidden-files-folders-finder-mac/

answered Mar 23 '15 at 20:10

Sze-Hung Daniel Tsui

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hey there thanks for the post. If someone is trying to use this, then I had success using the following command line: "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true ; killall Finder". Otherwise, it does not work. – serge-k Nov 10 '15 at 23:53
Is there a way to show just the file starting by dot "." but not the system file? – Dec 05 '15 at 15:33

score 9 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 12 '17 at 23:56

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You can edit hidden file in terminal using this command

open -a TextEdit .gitignore

answered Dec 12 '17 at 23:56

Cong Dan Luong

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 06 '16 at 12:08

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If you just want to view a .gitignore from the console just type "nano .gitignore" in that directory. This command "nano" simply opens any textfile in nano console environment for viewing or editing

answered Mar 06 '16 at 12:08

akcasoy

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 06 '19 at 13:48

In addition to the accepted answer, you can create an alias to easily show/hide the hidden files in Terminal. This is how I set it up (tested/working on macOS Mojave 10.14.1).

In my user directory I created a new file .custom_aliases and wrote this in:

# Show/hide files
alias showall='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder'
alias hideall='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false; killall Finder'

Next I opened .bash-profile (should also be in your user directory, if not just create it there) and added this to the top of the file:

# Load custom aliases
source ~/.custom_aliases

And that's it! Now whenever I need to view the hidden files I just type showall in Terminal and hideall when I'm done. You could also define the aliases directly in the .bash_profile, but I have some other stuff so I like to keep all the aliases together in a separate file.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered May 09 '19 at 10:50

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Show hide file and folder on MacOs Mojave 10.14.4

Apply at Terminal

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true;
killall Finder;

answered May 09 '19 at 10:50

Shomu

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score -4 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 13 '13 at 20:02

-4

It's possible you might just not have a .gitignore file. If you don't have one, you can create it like this:

>touch ~/.gitignore

And then edit it however you'd like. Git will automatically check this file, without any additional configuration!

answered Feb 13 '13 at 20:02

Billy Lazzaro

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Show system files / Show git ignore in osx

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