How to hide files and folders in OS X – Guide
Who wants to see everything everywhere all the time? On a Mac, however, you don’t need to hide folders inside other folders. Learn how to hide folders in the right place on Mac, and How to still open hidden folders, here.
How to hide files and folders in OS X
Enable FileVault
This is probably the simplest way to do it. Go to the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences and enable FileVault. This will encrypt your entire hard drive, so someone will need your password to access your content.
Hide them in the Library
Assuming your /Library folder is hidden (which is the default in OS X Mountain Lion), hold down the Option key when opening the Finder’s Go menu. Navigate to that Library folder and create a new folder there or just drag the files or folders you want to hide into it.
Put them in another user account
Create a new user in the Users & Groups preferences pane of System Preferences and place the files and folders you want to hide in that account.
Make file/folder hidden 1
In Terminal, type chflags hidden and drag a folder or file you want to hide into the Terminal window; you can still access these hidden files and folders by calling the Go To Folder dialog box (Command-Shift-G) and typing in their full paths. To unhide them, go back to Terminal and type chflags no hidden followed by the path of the file or folder.
Leave the file/folder hidden 2
Again in Terminal, type mv filename .filename. This moves the original folder to one with a dot at the beginning of the name; by default, folders with dots at the beginning of their names are hidden in OS X. You can also type mkdir .hiddenfolder to create a new hidden folder. In both cases, you can re-access the hidden folder using the Go to Folder option.
hide in plain sight
Use innocent sounding filenames like cat videos from January 2013. LOL! instead of something more intriguing (Top secret).
Set visibility attribute to invisible
If you have Apple Developer Tools installed, go to Terminal and type set file a V followed by the name of the file or folder. This sets its visibility attribute to invisible; you can undo this by repeating the command with a lowercase v.
Final note
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