Comments on: Quick Tip: Show/Hide Hidden Files

By: Mike Cheung

Mike Cheung — Thu, 26 May 2011 09:53:48 +0000

Someone (nikolar) had asked about this in the other comment section but for some reason I wasn’t able to reply to it. I retooled the two services into one that toggles between showing and hiding the hidden files:

VALUE=$(defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles).
if [ "$VALUE" = FALSE ]; then.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE.
else
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE.
fi
osascript -e ‘tell application “Finder” to quit’;.
osascript -e ‘tell application “Finder” to activate’;.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:08:12 +0000

I followed these steps. When I went into Finder > Documents…all my Documents are now missing. Are my documents deleted forever?

By: Shannon

Shannon — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:00:32 +0000

Ok, so I followed these steps, and now when I go into my Documents Folder..there’s nothing there. Have all my Documents been deleted??

By: nova media

nova media — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:15:06 +0000

If you want to hide some files on your Mac from curious eyes, then there is a solution available. It is called UberMask. It allows to hide/show files with a single keystroke. Available for test here: http://www.novamedia.de/en/mac-ubermask.html

By: Vijay

Vijay — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:31:14 +0000

This works great, but two things happened. The script showed the hidden files, but also show how much used/free space is on my local drives. I was able to run the script to now show the hidden files, but my local drives still know the used/free space. How do I get rid of that?

By: zach

zach — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:05:04 +0000

Thanks Melanie this worked perfect

By: nicole Weber

nicole Weber — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:01:03 +0000

cmd click not working… don’t know why i cannot get the pop up box? please help

By: CamJH

CamJH — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:22:01 +0000

When I open Automator, what template do i use???

By: James Wilson

James Wilson — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:19:33 +0000

Thanks for this writeup! You should update it (or provide new instructions) for the changes to Automator right-click menu functionality in Snow Leopard.

I found the following comment to be useful, that describes the changes.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8713076&postcount=3

The steps to get the Automator script right-click menu items back in Snow Leopard are:

1. Open Automater.
2. Choose the ‘Service’ template
3. Specify that the service receives input from ‘files or folders’ in application ‘Finder’
4. Find and Drag the ‘Run Shell Script’ action from the Actions sidebar.
5. Paste in the commands mentioned in the original instructions.
6. Save the script according to the original instructions.
7. Repeat these instructions for both ‘Show Hidden Files’ and ‘Hide Hidden Files’.

To see it in action just right click on any file or folder in finder, and there will be a new ‘Services’ menu > Hide Hidden Files, Show Hidden Files.

Note you can also make this option appear in the MAIN application Services menu (eg, Finder > Services > Hide Hidden Files). In step #3, choose ‘no input’ instead of ‘files or folders’.

By: r

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:07:52 +0000

I was having trouble with Automator on my laptop and found this much MUCH simpler alternative using Terminal…

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=lBCaPLrN5Mw