I've noticed something strange in Finder since upgrading to Mountain Lion; any hidden folder or files (that I've already run defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
for) can only be opened by manually Ctrl-clicking the it and selecting Open. Is there a way I can modify Finder's behavior to be able to double-click and open hidden files and folders as was possible on Lion?
MacOS – Can Mountain Lion be modified so that a double click will open “hidden” folders and files
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Best Answer
Its looks like this might be a Mountain Lion Bug and a bug report has been submitted to Apple for this issue. Additionally, after some testing its seems that hidden files and folders will not open when double-clicked from with in a Finder window that has an icons, lists, or Cover Flow view selected.
Note: For the Cover flow view double-click does not work in the list view, yet double clicking items in the cover flow section will cause the file or folder to open.
Note: If you double-click hidden files/folders on the desktop they open as expected, which seems odd, and kind of indicates that this not working in most Finder window views is just a bug.
Work Arounds until the bug (hopefully its a bug and not a new feature) is fixed by Apple:
Use the "column" or "Cover Flow" Finder views.
With the Cover Flow view selected the work around is two steps.