This folder includes Applications, Library, System and Users – but also includes a lot of hidden folders and files. Click on the Go menu at the top of the screen, hold down the Option key, and. If you want to obscure the files again, press the same Command + Shift +. The hidden files will show up as translucent in the folder. Now you will see your disk in the Locations section of the Finder (or the Devices section in older macOSs). Showing hidden files via Mac Finder Press the Command + Shift +. You will find your Mac listed under Locations.Click on Finder > Settings/Preferences.Open the Go menu and the Library folder shows there. Check the box of Show Library Folder at the bottom of the new dialogue. Select Show View Options from the pop-up menu. In Finder, press Command-Shift-H keys to get into the Home folder. If you don’t see a Macintosh HD folder (or whatever you have named your main disk) in the left-hand column when you open the Finder here’s what to do: In the first place, you must head to the Home folder on Mac. This Library folder is located inside what is often referred to as the Macintosh HD folder – but yours will probably be named whatever you have called your Mac. The second library folder isn’t hidden as such, but it is still tricky to locate thanks to changes Apple’s made to the Finder over the years.

Click on it to go straight to the folder. You will see the ~/Library folder listed below the Home folder.Just is to do the following:Īlt (Option) and choose Go from the dropdown menu bar at the top of the screen. Korn, K.-Phong Vo, An Efﬁcient File Hierarchy Walker.There is in fact an even easier way to find your hidden ~/Library/ folder. Clicking on a folder should show its path at the bottom of the finder window. The folders are what you want to focus on. You’ll get a mix of small files and directories as a result (ideally). This is because the descendants of a directory must be processed before the directory itself can be processed. Make sure the search is set to This Mac, then click the plus button underneath the search box to add System Files and are included. In the case of commands such as rm and du, a postorder depth-ﬁrst search is, in fact, the method of choice. Only when this folder is completely removed, the next one is traversed*: So, it goes into the first folder – as deeply as possible – and starts deleting from there. The order of a recursive rm is depth-first, by the way. Last but not least, the ~/Library/Keychains folder will contain your saved passwords. So, when restoring, you might lose data saved in those five days.Īlso check ~/Library/Mail for any Mail.app content. those in ~/Library/Preferences or ~/Library/Application Support.īoth directories contain the most important user data, namely your application settings and additional data (e.g. There are so many possibilities for items going missing that you relied upon – only very few files here are restored automatically by the system, e.g. I wouldn't risk anything and just restore your complete ~/Library.

How to get to library folder on mac