<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" type="topic" style="task" id="files-hidden" xml:lang="hi">

  <info>

    <link type="guide" xref="files#faq"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.6.0" version="0.2" date="2012-09-29" status="review"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.13.92" date="2014-09-20" status="candidate"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.18" date="2015-09-28" status="candidate"/>

    <credit type="author">

      <name>फील् बूल्</name>

      <email>philbull@gmail.com</email>

    </credit>

    <credit type="editor">

      <name>Michael Hill</name>

      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>

    </credit>

    <credit type="editor">

      <name>David King</name>

      <email>amigadave@amigadave.com</email>

    </credit>

    <include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="legal.xml"/>

    <desc>Make a file invisible, so you cannot see it in the file

    manager.</desc>

  </info>

<title>Hide a file</title>

  
The <app>Files</app> file manager gives you the ability to hide and unhide

  files at your discretion. When a file is hidden, it is not displayed by the

  file manager, but it is still there in its folder.

  
To hide a file, <link xref="files-rename">rename it</link> with a

  <file>.</file> at the beginning of its name. For example, to hide a file

  named <file>example.txt</file>, you should rename it to

  <file>.example.txt</file>.

<note>

  
You can hide folders in the same way that you can hide files. Hide a

  folder by placing a <file>.</file> at the beginning of the folder’s name.

</note>

<section id="show-hidden">

 <title>Show all hidden files</title>

  
If you want to see all hidden files in a folder, go to that folder and

  either click the

  view options button in the toolbar and pick <gui>Show Hidden Files</gui>, or press

  <keyseq><key>Ctrl</key><key>H</key></keyseq>. You will see all hidden files,

  along with regular files that are not hidden.

  
To hide these files again, either click the

  view options button in the toolbar and pick <gui>Show Hidden Files</gui>, or press

  <keyseq><key>Ctrl</key><key>H</key></keyseq> again.

</section>

<section id="unhide">

 <title>Unhide a file</title>

  
To unhide a file, go to the folder containing the hidden file and click

  the

  view options button in the toolbar and pick <gui>Show Hidden Files</gui>.

  Then, find the hidden file and rename it so that it does not have a

  <file>.</file> in front of its name. For example, to unhide a file called

  <file>.example.txt</file>, you should rename it to

  <file>example.txt</file>.

  
Once you have renamed the file, you can either click the

  view options button in the toolbar and pick <gui>Show Hidden Files</gui>, or

  press <keyseq><key>Ctrl</key><key>H</key></keyseq> to hide any other hidden

  files again.

  <note>
By default, you will only see hidden files in the file

  manager until you close the file manager. To change this setting so that the

  file manager will always show hidden files, see

  <link xref="nautilus-views"/>.
</note>

  <note>
Most hidden files will have a <file>.</file> at the

  beginning of their name, but others might have a <file>~</file> at the end of

  their name instead. These files are backup files. See

  <link xref="files-tilde"/> for more information.
</note>

</section>

</page>