chflags nohidden not unhiding hidden files

Question

Problem: because of an unkown reason all my desktop files and folders were hidden. i managed do unhide all folders, but i can't unhide the files

i tried to unhide the files via terminal chflags nohidden filename but it doesn't work. i also checked if the hidden flag is placed, but there is no hidden flag on the files (but they aren't visible). here is the output via terminalcommand ls -lo:

-rw-r--r--@ 1 username 13669 19 Aug 11:54 filename.txt

i also tried an app called InvisibliX (which isn't under development anymore), with no success and of course i used the searching function, which lead me to this: How to unhide files on Mac? with no further success

I'm thankful for every hint you may have for me!

Some additional information regarding the OS: Mac OS X Catalina 10.15.6

Answer 1

Once I copied files via terminal from an iPod to a Mac and somehow they appeared hidden, chflags nohidden <filename> did not work, neither the same command with different option flags. Finally, I found this answer which worked fine. So:

1. xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo <filename>
2. chflags nohidden <filename>
3. killall Finder (just in case)

I did it using * so I did not have to go one by one. Hope it helps,

Answer 2

I answered the same question and OP reported that the files got unhidden at first but got hidden later on. Looks like a bug to me.

• Files on my desktop seem to set themselves as hidden files (macOS Catalina), greyed out, even though they don't begin with periods

---

It seems you need a recursive flag.

chflags -R nohidden ~/Desktop/folder

Then kill Finder to restart it.

killall Finder

Answer 3

If it does help, I found what I believe would be a bug. I tried to use recursive mode to unhide files within root and subfolders. As long as I would use only the path to Root folder (Documents) the terminal console output was; No such file or directory

sudo chlfags - R nohidden /Users/user/Documents/

When I copied whole path to the file (use Command+shift+[.] to show hidden files first in Finder), hid or unhid a file within Documents folder, I was also able to just remove the file name from the path and then successfully execute Recursive action to hide/unhide all files and folders within Documents. Is this does look and feel like a bug to me.

Workaround:

chflags - R nohidden  /Users/user/Documents/filename.txt

the file was then visible.

Next step, remove the file name from the path and repeat command, to either hide or unhide.

chflags - R nohidden  /Users/user/Documents/

No need to kill Finder to confirm, just move between folder up or down to refresh the window. It worked for me on Big Sur Mac OS.

Answer 4

There seems to be a bug or undocumented behavior (at least in macOS Sequoia) where you can't unhide a file if it is inside of a hidden folder in iCloud Drive (this does not happen outside of iCloud Drive):

So, assuming you have /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory/SomeFile.txt:

You can do:

chflags hidden /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory
chflags hidden /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory/SomeFile.txt

And the folder AND file will be hidden. BUT if you then try to unhide just the file:

chflags nohidden /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory/SomeFile.txt

It just doesn't work, even if you restart Finder or the whole device, the file stays hidden.

For some reason, you have to unhide the folder and file:

chflags nohidden /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory
chflags nohidden /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory/SomeFile.txt

Wait a couple of seconds (presumably for the change to be synced?), and then you can hide just the folder:

chflags hidden /Users/John/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/SomeDirectory

Answer 5

Maybe you didn't use chflags hidden instead, setfile -a V.