kwaxuyeoma

August 18, 2011 at 11:47am

I finally got it after a while of fooling around. When I followed the instructions to hide a folder, that left me clueless to un-hide a folder. While the drag and drop feature for copying a file path into terminal is snazzy, it's completely unnecessary and confusing if you attempt to, "reverse assembly" as we say in auto repair.

Consider the command, "mv" and then the dragged and dropped path, "Users/name/Desktop/Hiddenfolder". My research concluded that all I really need to do to unhide this folder was to add to the command, "mv" and make it, "mv -i" then change the name of the folder from its hidden name .Hiddenfolder to Hiddenfolder. However, I was still using the path from the first command. So, Terminal was weirded out and not un-hiding my folder. Thus, I realized that the method of reverse assembly was not going to work based on the instructions in this article. Then I figured that Terminal starts out in my home directory, the problem was my redunency in directing Terminal. Therefore, this method is better for hiding and unhiding folders:

To Hide: mv Desktop/Hiddenfolder Desktop/.Hiddenfolder

To Un-Hide: mv -i Desktop/.Hiddenfoder Desktop/Hiddenfolder

Eryn

May 19, 2011 at 11:59pm

I tried it and found that I could not access my file because I do not have permission through Finder, but I can open the file if I type "open " and the file address.

To reverse the renaming to see my file on Desktop again, I retype the "mv ~/Desktop/.xxxx ~/Desktop/xxxx" so the file name is changed to normal without the period in front.

Handy, but I would have to remember the file address to open it.

corybohon

May 19, 2011 at 6:56pm

Hi artbytar,

Glad you liked the tutorial, and sorry that you cannot find your hidden folder on your external drive. Here's how to navigate to folders on your external drive. 

1. Open a new Finder window

2. Press Command + Shift + G

3. Type the following: /Volumes/YourExternalDriveName/.YourHiddenFolderName

Replace "YourExternalDriveName" with the name of your external hard drive (you can find this under the "Name and Extension" section after right-clicking on the drive and selecting "Get Info" ). Next, where it says ".YourHiddenFolderName", type the name of the hidden folder that you created (obviously, if you don't have it hidden at the root of the drive, you'll need to specify the additional directories in the path). 

 

So, if you have a ".Secret" folder hidden in a regular, non-hidden folder called "Music" on your drive called "Drobo," you would type the following into the Terminal window:

/Volumes/Drobo/Music/.Secret

 

I hope this helps! Let me know if it doesn't and I can help you further.