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How to view a Mac's /Library folder. There are three ways to easily view your hidden /Library/ folder. In macOS Sierra Apple added a Finder keyboard shortcut that makes it possible to quickly. Hold down the Alt (Option) key when using the Go menu. The user Library folder is listed below the current user's home directory. Note: After you open the Library folder, you can drag the Library icon from the top of that window to the Dock, sidebar, or toolbar to make it readily accessible. May 17, 2012 How to make your Mac's Library folder visible. Dragging the Library folder to your favorites list in the Finder unhides it.
Beginning with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later, the Library folder located in a user's home folder /Library is hidden by default. This tutorial covers several methods to make the Library folder visible again. Instructions Method 1: Using the Finder's Go menu. Hold down the Option key and open the Go menu in the Finder; Select Library from the. Jul 22, 2015 Duplicate Photo Finder (DPF) is a swift and easy tool built to help you find and safely delete duplicate and similar photos on your Mac. It works with Photos library, as well as with Local and Remote storages. Features:. Apple Photos Press the Scan Library button and DPF will find duplicates or very similar photos in your Photos library.
Dec 20, 2018 For temporary access to your user library Go to Finder Go and press either the Option key or the Shift key and select library. Apple decided to hide your user’s Library folder by default in Mac OS X 10.7 and all later Mac OSX and macOS releases. Scribe Video Center. Finder is a science fiction comic book series written and drawn by Carla Speed McNeil, and is currently published by Dark Horse Comics. McNeil describes Finder as 'aboriginal science fiction' and her storylines throw together characters from recognizable aboriginal and modern urban societies in a far-future Earth.
Your Library folder will open and you can use it as you normally would. Note that it will not be visible when you close the folder window, but you can always get to it again using Option-Go. This method will always work and requires no system modification.
Finder windows have a sidebar with a list of Favorites, Devices, and other items. (Hint: if the Sidebar is not visible for you in Finder windows, select Show Sidebar from the View menu in the Finder.) If you use the Library folder frequently you can add it to your Sidebar like this:
It will stay there even if you close the Library folder, and you can quickly jump to it by clicking on the favorite. If you ever need to remove it, you can Ctrl-Click on the icon in the Sidebar and select Remove from Sidebar.
and press the Return key. You should get the command prompt back, and your Library folder will now be visible in the Finder.
Result:
Caveat to the Terminal command method
While it quickly restores the Library folder to its pre-Lion behavior, Apple's system updates will revert the folder to 'hidden' and you will have to run the command after a system update to unhide it again. This can be quite cumbersome. To avoid this and to fully embrace the Apple lifestyle, we recommend you stick with the Go menu or Sidebar methods described previously.
There is another option that is persistent after OS X updates. Launch Terminal and run the following command:
This will make an alias in your home directory titled 'LibrarE' that will take you to the ~/Library folder. Note the intentional butchering of the word 'LibrarE'; you can change 'LibrarE' to anything other than 'Library'.
If you are a rebel at heart and refuse to play by Apple's rules, you can save command to a file and add it to your login items, so it will be run whenever you log in. A system update usually requires a logout and log in, so the Library folder will be automatically unhidden again after a system update. Note that this requires some familiarity with the command line and editing text files using a text editor such as BBEdit, TextWrangler, oremacs; or at least knowing how to save as plain text from Word or Notepad.
This will make the file executable. You can test the script by double-clicking on it in the Finder. It should briefly open a Terminal window and run the command. The Library folder should be unhidden if it was hidden before.
Exercise to the reader: there may be a better way to run a shell command at user level at the time of graphical login. If you know of one, please do mention it in the comments!
The Library folder for the users on a Mac is always hidden as Apple just doesn’t want you to access it as it thinks you don’t need access to it. However, macOS does provide an option to see this folder and access its contents, but you should only do that if you know what you are doing as a single mistake may mess-up everything in there.
We already have a guide that shows how you can quickly access the Library folder on your Mac, but what it doesn’t do is it doesn’t let you unhide the folder. That way, you can access the folder, but it will not always be visible in the file explorer – the Finder app – on your Mac.
So, if you really want to open the Library folder using the Finder quickly, you can’t do as the folder is not visible anywhere in the app. If you happen to access the folder occasionally, you should not have any issues as you can just use any temporary method to get access to the folder, however, if you happen to use the folder now and then, you will need a permanent solution to quickly accessing the folder.
In the guide below, we’re going to show you how you can unhide the Library folder on your Mac. That way, the folder will start to appear in the Finder beside the other folders, and you should be able to access it with a single click.
If that’s what you would like to do, here’s all you need to do to get that:
One of the ways to access the Library folder is to use the Shift key. When you hold down Shift on your keyboard, some extra options appear in your regular menus that let you access to some special content such as the Library folder.
Here’s how to use this method:
Get inside a Finder window so that you can access its options. Going to your Mac’s desktop is the best way to do that.
Once you are on the desktop of your Mac, you should see the Finder options on the top of your screen. What you need to do is find the menu labeled as “Go” and click on it.
As you can see above, the Library folder just doesn’t exist there although it does exist on your system. To enable it in this menu, hold down the “Shift” key on your keyboard, and the folder will appear in the menu. Clicking on the folder will take you to the current user account’s Library folder.
So, that was a nice way of accessing the Library folder as all it needed was a press on the Shift key and you were ready to go.
While the method above lets you access the Library folder for your user account, the option for the folder will go away as soon as let go of the Shift key. If you would like for the option to continue to be there, you need to do the following procedure to make it stick there:
Go to the desktop area of your Mac so that you are inside a Finder window.
Click on the “Go” menu at the top and select the option that says “Go to Folder.” This option allows you to jump to any directory on your Mac and you just have to input the path to the directory.
Enter in the following path into the box on your screen and hit “Go” to go there. Make sure to replace Mahesh with the username of your Mac’s account.
/Users/Mahesh/
When the user folder opens, and you can see your files, click on the “View” menu at the top of your screen and it will reveal the Finder’s view options. Click on the option that says “Show View Options” to see the settings that control what should be shown in the Finder windows. Alternatively, you can press the “Command + J” key combination to access the option.
The view options will appear on your screen, and you can now modify them however you want. What we’re interested in is the option that says “Show Library Folder.” You need to checkmark this option and it will make the Library folder to appear in the regular menu of the Finder app. Just checkmark the box and close the panel.
From now on, you should be able to access the Library folder from any window of the Finder app. To do that, you just have to pull down the Go menu and click on “Library,” and you should be inside the Library folder for your user account.
So, that was a permanent method to enable the Library folder in the Finder menu on your Mac. The option for accessing the folder should now always be visible in the Finder, and you are just a click away from getting to that folder on your machine.
Another way to enable the Library folder in the Finder is to use a command in the Terminal app. The command does exactly what you did in the above section, but this uses fewer steps as you just have to enter the command in the Terminal app and hit Enter and you are all set. Here’s how to do that:
Launch the Terminal app on your Mac by clicking on Launchpad in the Dock and searching for and clicking on “Terminal.” The app should launch.
When Terminal launches, type in the following command and press Enter.
chflags nohidden ~/Library/
As soon as you press Enter, the command will get executed, and it will unhide the Library folder in the Finder menus on your Mac.
You are all set.
So, above were some of the ways to access the Library folder on your Mac. The last two methods let you permanently enable the folder in the Finder, so you don’t need to hold down Shift key or do anything else to access the folder as the folder is now always visible in the Finder menus.
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