How to Show Hidden Files on Mac

Press Command + Shift + Period to show hidden files in Finder on macOS Sequoia, or use a defaults write command in Terminal to make it permanent.

1. Open the folder you want to inspect. Click the Finder icon in the Dock, then open the folder you want to look at. Your home folder is a reasonable place to start, since most applications keep their preference dotfiles there. Press Shift + Command + H to jump straight to it from any Finder window.
2. Press the show hidden files combo. Hold Command and Shift, then press the period key. Greyed-out files and folders appear immediately: .DS_Store, .localized, and whatever else the folder is carrying. Press the same three keys again to hide them. The setting applies to every open Finder window, not only the front one.
3. Use the same combo in Open dialogs. The toggle also works inside any Open or Save dialog. Bring up a file picker in an app, press the same three keys, and the hidden items appear in the list. This is the fastest route to a folder like the user Library when an app refuses to browse there.
4. Make the change permanent in Terminal. Open Terminal from Applications > Utilities. Type defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true and press Return. Then type killall Finder and press Return. The Finder quits and relaunches, and hidden files stay visible in every window from then on, across restarts.
5. Reverse the Terminal setting. Run defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false in Terminal, then run killall Finder again. The keyboard toggle still works afterwards, so you keep the on-demand view without the permanent clutter. That is the arrangement most people settle on once the novelty wears off.
6. Leave the system dotfiles alone. Look, do not delete. Files beginning with a period belong to macOS and to the applications you installed. The file .DS_Store holds folder view settings, .localized marks a folder for translated names, and the dotfiles in your home folder hold app configuration. Removing them breaks behavior with no warning.