Toggle display of hidden files in Finder with Automator (OSX)

Do you find yourself needing to toggle the display of hidden files in Mac OSX?  Yeah, me too.   For us web developers this can often be to edit .htaccess files.

For reference here is the code:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Don’t get me wrong, playing in Terminal is sublime geekiness but still something I wish was easier.  Say, with a keyboard command or mouse click.

This is where Automator comes in.  Automator is a way in OSX to, as you might guess, automate tasks.

User madgunde over at Art of Geek put together a great article on how to create an Automator script to add a services menu option for all Finder windows.  This makes is very convenient to with just a click to switch the display of hidden files.  And it is more graceful than using the KillAll Terminal command.

Head over to Art of Geek for the full article.

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