Some file types are already hidden by default in Finder, and in all standard file dialogs in OS X (10.6) already. I would like to add a file type to be hidden: anything with the .pyc extension. If I select 'Get Info' on a .pyc file, there seems to be an option for hiding that file type, but it's disabled/grayed out and I don't know why. Is there any other way to hide them?
Macos – Hiding files of a certain extension (.pyc) from all Finder dialogs
findermacos
Related Solutions
This information is stored in the file's resource fork (Wikipedia). These resource forks are exposed as extended attributes (Wikipedia):
$ ls -l@ somefile.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 danielbeck staff 0 18 Mär 19:00 somefile.txt
# setting non-default application using Finder
$ ls -l@ somefile.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 danielbeck staff 0 18 Mär 19:01 somefile.txt
com.apple.ResourceFork 1338
Editing from scratch is probably quite painful -- lots of binary data:
$ xattr -p com.apple.ResourceFork somefile.txt
00 00 01 00 00 00 05 08 00 00 04 08 00 00 00 32
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 04 04 00 00 00 32 2F 55 73 65 72 73 2F 64
61 6E 69 65 6C 62 65 63 6B 2F 41 70 70 6C 69 63
61 74 69 6F 6E 73 2F 53 75 62 6C 69 6D 65 20 54
65 78 74 20 32 2E 61 70 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 05 08
00 00 04 08 00 00 00 32 0C 00 00 00 C0 05 00 00
00 1C 00 32 00 00 75 73 72 6F 00 00 00 0A 00 00
FF FF 00 00 00 00 19 00 00 00
But you can treat these resource forks like files. For example:
$ open somefile.txt # opens in Sublime 2
$ cp somefile.txt/..namedfork/rsrc openInSublime2rsrc
$ open otherfile.txt # opens in TextEdit
$ cp openInSublime2rsrc otherfile.txt/..namedfork/rsrc
$ open otherfile.txt # opens in Sublime 2
/..namedfork/rsrc
is how the resource fork is exposed to POSIX applications (i.e. probably everything you do in Terminal).
So you just need to create one "template" file from an existing resource fork (in this example openInSublime2rsrc
), and you can copy it to your other files afterwards.
Accessing hidden folders from Finder
If you need to go to a system folder not visible through the "normal" Finder, do the following.
Once you have the Finder dialog open, press Cmd+G
. Here, enter the path to the folder you want to open.
Accessing hidden files or folders from a dialog
You can show hidden files from any file open dialog by pressing Cmd+Shift+.
. Thanks to @kine for mentioning.
If you want to always display hidden files (those starting with a dot or hidden through the extended file attributes), enter the following in a Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Then, reload the Finder by option
-clicking its icon and selecting "Relaunch".
You can also toggle this option more easily with an AppleScript. See this post for instructions on how to save the AppleScript as an application that you can use to toggle the option without having to use a terminal.
Directly opening system files through the Terminal
As per Andrew's comment above, of course you can just enter the following:
open -a TextEdit /etc/hosts
open -a TextEdit ~/.somehiddenfile
Or, even shorter:
open -t /etc/hosts
Since:
-t
Causes the file to be opened with the default text editor, as determined via LaunchServices
Best Answer
Well, I wouldn't normally suggest this... But you asked...
Assuming Leopard:
Just supply the proper "/path/to/folder". The drawback is that it has to be done periodically for newly created files. And this also hides file from
ls
in Terminal. Fromman chflags
:Prior to Snow Leopard, you can try to edit the .hidden file that is in the root of the boot drive. That contains a list of hidden file types... But it doesn't exist on my Snow Leopard system, so it may have only existed in 10.4.