How to Show Hidden Files on your mac? If you find yourself needing to access hidden files on your Mac (say an .htaccess file you downloaded), run the below command from the terminal.
For those who don’t know, files that are hidden in Mac OS are determined so by preceding the filename with a single period symbol (.), you can actually make any file hidden by doing this.
Show Hidden Files on your Mac
Launch the Terminal and enter these commands exactly as shown. The first command activates the ability to see the hidden files:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Now you must relaunch the Finder by killing it, this is how the changes take effect:
killall Finder
If you want to hide hidden files again (those preceded with a .) and go back to the default Mac settings, you can just type the following:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Again you will need to kill the Finder so that it can relaunch for changes to take effect:
killall Finder
That’s all there is to it!
Show Hidden Files in a Mac Save Dialogue
You can quickly show all hidden files in any Mac OS X save dialogue box by hitting Command+Shift+Period
Show Hidden Files on your Mac through the Terminal
Another way to quickly see hidden files is by using the ls command within the Terminal, at the command line type the following:
The -a flag tells the ls (list) command to show all contents, including hidden files. You then just have to specify a directory if you want to see the hidden files in it:
This method does not effect the Finder or the visibility of hidden files outside of using the -a flag.
ls -a
The -a flag tells the ls (list) command to show all contents, including hidden files. You then just have to specify a directory if you want to see the hidden files in it:
ls -a ~/Sites/betasite
This method does not effect the Finder or the visibility of hidden files outside of using the -a flag.
Source : http://osxdaily.com/2009/02/25/show-hidden-files-in-os-x/