View all hidden files on a mac in finder

The Finder hides the standard Unix files and folders from you.

You can “Go To Folder…” and type in the name of the folder such as /var/log, but that’s fiddly and you still don’t see the “dot” files.

There’s a terminal command that will make all files and folders display in your Finder.

To do this open terminal from applications\utilities

At the terminal prompt enter

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

Note you need to use the capitalisation shown in the cammand lines.

This will show all hidden files in the Finder. 

Executing those same two lines with FALSE instead of TRUE will hide the files again.