Mac shell script to hide/show hidden files

Question

I'm very new to mac shell scripting, but I've written this to toggle hide/show hidden files on mac. (Then put on automator application) Is this a good solution?

#!/bin/sh

view=$(defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles)

if [ "$view" = "1" ]
then
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false
else
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
fi
killall Finder

Killing the Finder process is a bit extreme - what happens if the Finder is in the middle of doing something ? — Paul R, Oct 14 '11 at 09:36
Probably is a bit extreme, but it's not possible to change from hidden files to shown files (and back) without re-starting finder. — Miro Barsocchi, Oct 14 '11 at 10:05
You could restart the Finder by logging out using the Apple menu command: "Log Out..." You could check the checkbox: "Reopen windows when logging back in" if you didn't want to lose your place. — Kaydell, Aug 22 '13 at 11:06

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 17 '13 at 12:34

I'm using a script like this:

do shell script "x=$(defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles)
[ $x = 1 ] && b=false || b=true
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool $b"
tell application "Finder"
    quit
    delay 0.1 -- without this there was a "connection is invalid" error
    launch -- without this Finder was not made frontmost
    activate -- make Finder frontmost
    reopen -- open a default window
end tell

I don't know if killall Finder would be that dangerous either. It sends Finder a TERM signal, which can usually be caught by a process in order to terminate cleanly. Finder doesn't support sudden termination as of 10.8, but if it did, it should be safe to even send it a KILL signal.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 22 '15 at 16:50

If you want a fast way to show/hide hidden files from Terminal in Mac, add the lines below to your .bash_profile file in your home directory:

alias hidden-files-show="defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall Finder";
alias hidden-files-hide="defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO; killall Finder";

Close and open a new Terminal window for the new alias commands take effect, then you can quickly type "hid"-Tab to auto complete

$ hidden-files-show
$ hidden-files-hide

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

This question is old, but here's a good solution using your code:

osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to quit'

It's similar method for closing finder, but is more concise than Paul R's answer. Paul, if you see this and I'm missing any potential issues, please let me know.

Alternatively, you could use:

STATUS=`defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles`
if [ $STATUS == TRUE ]; 
then
 defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
else
 defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
fi
osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to quit'

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 11 '14 at 23:52

For what it is worth, I have the following in my .bash_profile for doing this, similar to @SwankyLegg

togglehidden() {
  STATUS=`defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles`
  if [ $STATUS == TRUE ]; 
  then
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
  else
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
  fi
  osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to quit'
  sleep 1
  osascript -e 'launch app "Finder"'
}

so I can call it from the Terminal. (NB, if you run it on a machine where AppleShowAllFiles has never been set, you'll get a complaint the first time you run it,ala:

XXXXXXXXX defaults[2228:124111] 
The domain/default pair of (/Users/xxx/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder, AppleShowAllFiles) does not exist

but everything's gonna be OK. I believe that it lives in the NSGlobalDomain by default, but this sets it in the user's. )

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 14 '11 at 10:13

Instead of killall Finder, which is somewhat extreme and dangerous (you may kill the Finder in the middle of file copying or other I/O operations). Instead you could just send an AppleEvent to the Finder to tell it to refresh a given window. E.g. to refresh the frontmost window you can do this in AppleScript:

tell application "Finder"
  tell front window
    update every item with necessity
  end tell
end tell

(from http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2009091413423819)

You can easily adapt this to refresh every open Finder window if that's what you need.

To run AppleScript code such as the above from a bash script you can use the osascript command line tool, e.g.

osascript <<EOF
tell application "Finder"
  tell front window
    update every item with necessity
  end tell
end tell
EOF

When I tried running `defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true; osascript -e 'tell windows of app "Finder" to update items with necessity'`, hidden files were not shown in Finder. Am I missing something? — Lri, Aug 17 '13 at 11:45

Mac shell script to hide/show hidden files

5 Answers5