Permanently Show Library Folder Mac

Your Mac has a secret. Thousands of them in fact, in the form of hidden files and folders lurking on its hard drive or SSD. Don’t worry, though. These files and folders are all supposed to be there. In fact, many of them are essential.

Many of these files are in your Mac’s main Library folder or in the ~/Library folder, which is in your User folder. Both these Library folders are hidden, but inside them are folders and files that hold things like preferences for apps.

In this article, we’ll tell you how you can view hidden files on your Mac and make your Library folder visible.

What are the hidden files on Mac?

Feb 17, 2020 One is the system library folder which you really shouldn’t mess with unless you know what you’re doing. You can view it by opting to show hidden files and folders on macOS, or you can. Open to your User's Home folder - /users/yourname/ - then either View Menu Show View Options or Cmd ⌘ J Check the box for Show Library Folder.This is just because in Column view you're less certain exactly which folder you are affecting. The Show Library option only appears when you're in.

The hidden files are a throwback to macOS’ Unix roots. In fact, the convention of naming them starting with a “.” comes from Unix. For that reason, you can’t use a “.” at the start of a regular file name, otherwise OS X will hide it.

The files themselves contain data like access rights and privileges for files and folders, application support files, and preferences.

There are a number of reasons files and folders are hidden. Mostly, though, it’s because they contain data critical to the smooth running of your Mac and that you shouldn’t interfere with. In addition, there’s no real reason for most users to see or access them. Also, if they were all visible, your Mac would look horribly cluttered.

How to view hidden files on Mac

Before you make your Mac show hidden files, it’s important to remember they’ve been hidden for a reason. The data they contain could cause havoc if you delete or alter it and don’t know what you’re doing.

To unhide your Library folder in macOS Sierra, launch Finder and navigate to your user Home folder (you can jump directly to your user folder by select  Go Home from the Finder’s menu bar. Mac show library directory list. Mar 12, 2015  Step 1: Open Finder. Step 2: Click Go → Go To Folder. Step 3: Type /Library and click Go. Dec 12, 2016  How to Show /Library Folder in MacOS Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra. From the Mac OS Finder, go to the Users home folder. Pull down the “View” menu and choose “View Options”. Choose “Show Library Folder” in the settings options for the User home folder. Dec 20, 2018  Options to Show User Library Click on your Users folder, open it in Column view, and select View Show View Options then check the box for Show Library Folder  If Library isn’t an option, check that you’re in Column View Select your User folder, and press Command+ J. Jan 12, 2020  Launch Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities. Enter the following command at the Terminal prompt: Press Return. Once the command executes, you can quit Terminal. The Library folder will now be visible in the Finder. Should you ever wish to set the Library folder.

Find Library Folder Mac

If your goal in viewing, for example ~/Library is so you can manually delete application support files for a program you’ve uninstalled, consider using a dedicated uninstaller like CleanMyMac X. That will make it easy to remove all the files associated with an application with one click. You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.

CleanMyMac X will also allow you to get rid of all the hidden files you no longer need. Many of these files are created and used then not needed anymore. They just sit there clogging up your hard drive. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac, identifies this system junk and allows you to quickly and easily get rid of it, potentially several gigabytes of disk space.

If you still want to view hidden files on your Mac, you need to go to the Finder and do the following:

Permanently Show Library Folder Mac Location

  1. Open a new Finder window and click on the name of your Mac under ‘Devices’ in the sidebar.
  2. Click on Macintosh HD, or whatever you’ve called your startup drive if you’ve renamed it.
  3. Press Command-Shift-. (period). You should now see lots of files and folders who’s name starts with “.” become visible.
  4. To re-hide the files and folders, hold down Command-Shift-. again.

How to view your Mac’s ~/Library folder

There are a couple of methods for making your ~/Library folder visible. Here’s the simplest:

  1. Click on the Finder in the Dock.
  2. Open a new Finder window and navigate to your user folder (Tip: if it’s not in the sidebar, go to the Finder menu, choose Preferences, click Sidebar and check the box next to your Home folder)
  3. Click on the Go menu.
  4. Hold down the Option (Alt) key.
  5. You should see that in the dropdown menu, Library appears below Home. Click on it.

Alternatively, do this to view your Library folder:

  1. Click on the Finder in the Dock.
  2. Click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.
  3. In the window that opens, type “~/Library”

With both these methods, your Library folder will disappear again when you close the Finder window. It’s easy enough to run through the steps above again to make it visible again when you need to, but if you want it permanently accessible, there are a couple of ways to do it.

The quickest is to drag the Library folder to the Finder’s sidebar. That will create a shortcut to it that will persist. If you want to keep ~/Library visible but don’t want it clogging up the sidebar in Finder windows, do this:

  1. Click on the Finder in the Dock.
  2. Click on the View menu and choose Show View Options.
  3. Check the box labelled Show Library Folder at the bottom of the window.

How to make macOS show hidden files using Terminal

If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can use the Terminal command line interface to view hidden files and folders. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Open Terminal from the Utilities folder in Applications, or by searching for it using Spotlight. You can also use the Go menu in the Finder to go directly to the Utilities folder.
  2. Type, or copy and paste, this command: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true
  3. Press Return
  4. Type: killall Finder

To hide the files again, repeat the above steps, but replace ‘true’ with ‘false’ at the end of step 2.

Mac library software. How to view a Mac's /Library folder. There are three ways to easily view your hidden /Library/ folder. In macOS Sierra Apple added a Finder keyboard shortcut that makes it possible to quickly. It seems like every day I search Google for the command to show hidden files on Mac OS X, not to mention Googling for the command to then hide those hidden files a few minutes later. Today I decided to make a short and easy to remember alias to speed up the process. Mar 12, 2020  There’s a reason that the Library folder on your Mac is tucked away out of site. This all-important folder holds files that your system uses like containers, application scripts, font files, caches, and other types of files. Apple hides this folder by default to reduce the risk of accidental. Jul 23, 2012  How do you unhide in a Time Machine File? What are you trying to do? Question: Q: How To Unhide the Library Folder in Mac OS X Lion More Less. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the.

How to hide any file or folder using Terminal

Now that you know how to view hidden files and folders on your Mac, you may be wondering how you can hide other files or folders, to keep them away from prying eyes. There are a number of third-party applications and utilities that offer to do this for you, but you can do it yourself in Terminal, like this:

  1. Launch Terminal.
  2. Type: chflags hidden
  3. Press the spacebar.
  4. Drag the file or folder you want to hide from the Finder onto the Terminal window.
  5. You’ll see the path to the file or folder displayed in Terminal after the command you typed.
  6. Hit Return to execute the command.

The file or folder you dragged onto the Terminal window will now be hidden. To see it again, use one of the methods described above to see hidden files.

To make the file visible permanently again, use the steps above, but in step 2 type: chflags nohidden

As you can see, viewing hidden files and folders on your Mac is very straightforward. There are a number of ways to do it, and you can make them visible temporarily or permanently.

However, just because you can view hidden files, doesn’t mean you should — the files are usually hidden because accidentally deleting them or altering them could cause chaos on your Mac. So, while it’s fine to have a peek, don’t do anything with the hidden files unless you know what you’re doing.

If you want to declutter your Mac or uninstall applications, use a dedicated application like CleanMyMac X. It will safely remove all useless files, add-ons, broken login items, caches, large and old files you didn't know about. Most likely, you won't even need to look for hidden files — CleanMyMac will do all the job for you.

We also showed that many of those files are stored in Library folders, including the one in your User folder, ~/Library. That folder is hidden by default, but you can view it or make it permanently visible using the techniques described above.

These might also interest you:

Just like the Windows operating system, the MacOS operating system has a hidden Library folder full of settings you shouldn’t really touch. Deleting some or all of these settings will at best force you to reinstall certain apps, and at worst, cause the whole system to collapse and require a complete reinstall.

But there may be times when accessing the Library folder is necessary. For example, many apps put backups in the Library folder and you may want to back up the backup. Or you might be customising your Mac, which will need access to certain library folders.

Here is how to get there and not cause your Mac to collapse in a cloud of dust in the process.

What Is The Library Folder On MacOS?

The library folder is the area of your MacOS computer where app settings are stored. When you install a program, a folder is created in the Library for all of the essential settings. This can be anything from plugins, preference files and log files.

It’s hidden because basically some people are just plain clumsy and quite often don’t know what they are deleting. It’s only when it’s too late when they realise that something they just deleted should have been kept.

So you could say that Apple is protecting you against your own worst impulses!

How To Find The Hidden Library Folder On MacOS

There are two ways to get to the hidden Library folder if you are confident enough of not triggering a nuclear apocalypse. But the second way is only really feasible when you know where to look.

First Method (The Easiest)

Go to Finder and drop down the “Go” menu. You’ll see that the Library folder is not listed.

Folder

To make the Library folder appear, press the “Alt” key (also known as the Option key) at the bottom left of your keyboard. The Library folder will now appear.

Click on the Library folder option to be taken straight to the folder.

The problem though with this method is that this is very temporary. As soon as you take your finger off the alt key, the Library folder will disappear again.

Second Method (Not Difficult)

Once you know the path to the folder (by following the previous method), you can then use the path to go directly to the Library folder.

At the top of the Library folder, you will see the exact path (location) of the folder on your computer.

Permanently Show Library Folder Mac El Capitan

I have covered over my username in the screenshot, but the path is :

With that in mind, go back to Finder’s Go menu and at the bottom, you’ll see this option :

Choosing “Go to Folder” will bring up a box where you can type the path to the Library folder. Hitting the “enter” key will then take you straight there.

Even better, until you input the path to a different folder, the path to the Library will remain in the “Go to Folder” box.

When it is gone, dropping down the menu arrow on the right hand side will show you a list of previous folders you went to, and the Library one will be there too.

Conclusion

There used to be a way to keep the Library folder showing permanently. But as of High Sierra, the Terminal command no longer seems to work.

Permanently Show Library Folder Mac Outlook

However, keeping the folder permanently visible isn’t a good idea since you might delete a system-critical file. Besides, as you have just seen, it is not difficult at all to go to the folder when you need it.