Nice tip to unhide your Mac's Library folder even after a system update
Summary: One of Apple's "big brother" features introduced in Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (now called plain ol' OS X Lion) is the hiding of the user's Library folder. While this may be a fine precaution for inexperienced users, it's a bother for Mac pros. A recent Login Script can fix this so-called feature.
One of Apple's "big brother" features introduced in Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (now called plain ol' OS X Lion) is the hiding of the user's Library folder. While this may be a fine precaution for inexperienced users, it's a bother for Mac pros. A recent Login Script can fix this so-called feature.
The User Library isn't gone, it's just hiding. You can reveal it by holding down the Option key while clicking on the Go Menu. Still, it's a bother to remember.
Daniel Jalkut, the founder of Red Sweater Software points out on his blog that even if you tweak the folder pref and make it visible, each time the system is updated, the folder disappears again. Jalkut solved this by hacking his configuration script in the Terminal.
I solved this very early on for my own needs by adding the command-line instructions for re-showing the Library folder to my Terminal configuration script. Every time I open a new Terminal window, the Library folder is aggressively set to visible again. In practice, this has meant that since 10.7 shipped, I’ve never been bothered once by Apple’s disappearing act.
For the rest of us, Jalkut offers a Script Login item that will do the fix. He offers detailed instructions (super easy) to apply it. Login items are found in the Users & Groups preference.
The script file is just a few lines of AppleScript code to invoke the appropriate shell script.
Nice.
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Talkback
So much b!ch!ng about nothing
"This is easy to reverse and show Library all the time with a terminal command:"
chflags nohidden ~/Library/
Wow!! That was hard and impossible to find.
Not giving direct access to the Library dir is probably a safety feature. There is very little reason to access files and data in it. There is nothing "big brother" about it. A user can still access the directory if needed.
So my guess is that you are pissed at MS and Linux (actually Unix in general) for hiding user configuration files and system files.
But what about Windows HIDING file extensions by default? That is not only stupid, but also a HUGE SECURITY RISK. People have no clue of what they are really starting ... a Trojan script/batch file? An executable? A word document? You can't go by the icon ... because it can be changed. To this day, I still have no idea why the feature is even there.
what?
The biggest learning in this article...
Too confusing.
ROTL. Different versions of the old OS had names too