Today I decided to make a short and easy to remember alias to speed up the process. All I need do now is showFiles
hideFiles
- Open Terminal found in Finder > Applications > Utilities
- In Terminal, paste the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
- Press return
- Hold the ‘Option/alt’ key, then right click on the Finder icon in the dock and click Relaunch.

Relaunch Finder by right clicking the Finder Icon whilst holding the ‘Option/alt’ key
This will show all hidden files. To hide them again, follow the same steps but replace the Terminal command with:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO