Certain files within your operating system are hidden and although they exist, there’s no way to see them and no setting in your System Preferences to make them appear. For many web developers, like myself, the .htaccess is a common offender. It is something that you occasionally need to edit, especially when setting up a new website, but Mac OS X keeps it hidden making it extremely hard to edit.

To show all hidden files within your OS, here’s what you do.

1. Open the Terminal.
2. Enter the following command in to the terminal:
   

   defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
   killall Finder

3. Done! Your finder will take a second to reload and then you’ll notice all sorts of hidden files throughout your hard drive.

Done with whatever hidden file you needed to deal with and sick of seeing all the extra crap? Do the exact same thing as above but change “TRUE” to “FALSE”, then relaunch the finder (Hold down Ctrl+Option, click on the Finder in your Dock and select “Relaunch”) and everything will return to it’s original invisible state.

NOTE: Generally speaking, most hidden files are probably invisible to the average user for a very good reason. Be careful with what you’re editing, moving, or deleting and backup your system beforehand.