Showing hidden files on the Mac (10.6)

Mac hides some files in Finder so you can't muck around with them and mess things up royally. But if you know what you are doing and want to see the hidden files (they usually start with a period, for example: .hidden), you can open Terminal and run this command (in a single line):

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

To reverse the operation, just change YES to NO, as in the following:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

You have to relaunch Finder to see the hidden files. To learn how to do that, see Relaunching Mac Finder.

The dimmed folders were hidden files, now exposed.