Looking for a good place to store a private key or a file that shouldn’t modified? Try saving the file in a hidden folder. Hidden folders and their contents do not show up in Finder or terminal window searches. Although they are not entirely invisible.

Launch terminal window

If you are not familiar with how to do this on a Mac. Please reference how to launch a terminal window on a Mac.

Navigate to the directory where you want to create the hidden folder (optional)

If you want to create your new hidden folder in your home directory, then you can skip this step. Otherwise, navigate to the directory of your choice.

Create a new hidden folder

Type ‘mkdir .yournewhiddenfolder’ and press enter. This creates a new folder in your current directory. Any folder created with a leading period in the name will automatically be hidden.

Open finder

Open finder and press CMD + Shift + G

Open newly created folder in Finder

If you created your hidden folder in your home directory, type ~/.yournewhiddenfolder and press go. If not, you will need to update the path to correspond to the directory you created the folder in. At this point you can now drag and drop any files you want into this folder. Any files contained in this folder will be hidden.

Still have issues? Contact us and we will walk you through it step by step.

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