macOS Hidden Files: Recover Lost Hidden Files & Folders on Mac

Updated on April 14, 2022

Most operating system hide few files and folders from users to keep them safe. Mac OS also have few files and folders hidden. If those libraries and directories were lost or damaged, the performance of the Mac is compromised. If you are looking for ways to access those files, this article helps you with free ways to access hidden files and folders on Mac. What if your files are damaged or lost? Do not worry! Download the SFWare Mac data recovery software and try it for free..

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Hiding folder is useful in protecting documents and folders from unauthorized users. With just a click, it hides files and folders along with their contents. With the help of this application, you can protect all your files avoiding them to be modified or seen and erased by any other users.

The library files and documents were kept hidden for reasons like avoiding deleting, modifying, or moving of these files. However, this could cause serious problem to your macOS performance.

In order to hide a file you have to set the hidden attribute for it. Finder and other Mac applications then ignore and do not display this file or folder by default.

If you want to unhide the folder and “show the hidden folder” option doesn’t work on your Mac computer, all your important files would be at stake.

How to View Hidden Files in MacOS?

Here are a few methods that helps you find and open the hidden files on Mac OS.

Access Hidden Files using Mac Finder

The below steps explain how to find hidden files with the keyboard shortcuts.

You can use the steps to see hidden files in your MacBook

2. View Hidden Files using the Terminal Command-Line Interface

You can make use of the command line interface to view hidden files in your Mac Computer inbuilt with macOS by default.

When you are done with the process, you can view all your hidden files. This method could also be used to unhide folders on Mac external hard drives.

How to Hide Important Files in Terminal?

Terminal can also help you hide individual files and folders on your computer. This is helpful if you have password-protected files to avoid any actions on the file. To hide files, Open Terminal using Step 1 and type the following:

Although you can explore all the hidden files by following the above methods, what if hidden files are not available on your Mac hard drive? In most of the cases, most of the Mac users lose them accidentally.

Situations where you Hidden Files are lost from Mac drive

  1. You might miss out on the location of hidden files

  2. Accidental formatting of Mac Volume

  3. Using rm command to clean up the disk. You can recover files deleted from rm command though.

  4. Unintentional deletion of the files from Mac hard drive

Well, you can find various reasons other than the above mentioned scenarios that are responsible for losing hidden files from Mac. If you are facing such a crisis, you will be unable to find files that are kept in hidden mode on your Mac volume.

If you tried the methods to find the hidden file and unable to view, there are chances your files and folders might have been lost from the Mac drive.

Losing a hidden file can be really frustrating, it could be just impossible as there is nowhere else to look. Time like these use a trusted Mac File Recovery Tool to find the lost files. By utilizing such an application, you can make it quite simple to access hidden files or turn invisible with simple steps.


SFWare Data Recovery Software is the most recommended application to recover hidden files on Mac. The tool has a built-in search algorithm that takes a few minutes to scan the drive’s each sector to recover lost, deleted or formatted data from the hard disk. The software supports all the Mac versions including the newest macOS Big Sur, Catalina, High Sierra, Mojave and others.

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How to Recover Hidden Files & Folders from Mac?

The simple way to show hidden files on Mac OS X is as follows:

  • Download SFWare Deleted File Recovery Software on your Mac machine
  • Choose "Recover Files" option from the main screen
  • recover deleted Mac hidden files

  • Then select "Lost File Recovery" or "Deleted File Recovery" option from the second screen
  • Now select the appropriate disk from where you want to recover hidden files from Mac Volume, and then click on "Next" option
  • select Mac drive where files were stored

  • You can either use Data view or File type view to view around the files and save the files on your computer.
  • select files to recover from macOS

  • Software scans the entire selected Volume and recover hidden files
  • Once the recovery process is completed, you can "Preview" recovered files and "Save" on any desired location

  • Recover Deleted Files

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