Last time on the show, Dennis was having trouble with an iBook where the hard drive was nearly full, but he couldn’t find the folder that was taking up all the room. I had suggested taking a look at the hidden folder where log files are kept, and seeing if any of those were taking up an unnecessary amount of space.
In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can see all the files and folders on your Mac.
But first, a word of warning:
Your Mac hides a lot of files from you for a very good reason: They’re not supposed to be messed with. Some files, like the logs, can be tossed without too much lost. But throwing away other files may cause your Mac not to function. Don’t throw away hidden files unless you know they’re OK to trash.
Log files are files that are generally OK to toss. They keep track of what your computer was doing, and are pretty useful if you’re trying to track down a problem. Normally, these log files get rotated every week and the old ones get tossed, almost like produce at your grocery store. Sometimes that rotation can be interrupted, keeping old log files around too long. Other times, they can grow to enourmous size if there is some problem that starts filling them with errors.
Checking in on the log files is easy enough. Using the Finder’s “Go” menu, just type:
That will take you to the folder where many of the log files are kept. If you see some that are eating up tremendous amounts of disk space, they would be a good candidate to trash.
In general, this folder will keep itself from getting too large. Unless you have a specific issue, your best strategy is to just leave it alone and let OS X handle it.
Un-hiding Hidden Files
Sometimes it’s helpful to be able to see all the files, even the ones that OS X normally hides from you. Doing so requires a trip to the OS X command line (called “Terminal” in the Utilities folder). Running this command will make the Finder display everything:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
You’ll then want to restart your Finder. Hold down the “Option” and “Control” key while clicking on its icon in the Dock. You should they have the option to “Relaunch”. After you’ve done that, you should start to see a lot of files and folders that you may have never seen before.
Seeing all the hidden things in OS X is fun for a while, but it quickly becomes a nuisance. I consider myself something of a power user, and I don’t even like seeing all that extra stuff. Basically, it’s stuff that I really don’t need to see.
To get things back to normal, type this command into the Terminal application:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Relaunch the Finder and you’re back to seeing only the files that you saw before. Just like the magicians used to say, “Now you see it. Now you don’t.”
