Unhiding hidden files in Sequoia

eacat123 wrote:

• I have a lot of files (mostly jpeg's as far as I can tell) that have been hidden. I didn't notice that these files were hidden when I upgraded to Sonoma. I've since upgraded to Sequoia 15.3.2 and now I've found all these hidden files. I've been able to display them in the folders by pressing Command + Shift + . (period). I then tried using Terminal and the commands "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall Finder" to permanently unhide the files. This worked in a single folder; I still have hidden files in several other folders. I tried opening a different folder and repeating the Terminal commands for that folder, but nothing changed.

How can I permanently unhide all hidden files in all my folders? All the folders and files are stored in iCloud.

• This isn't urgent as most of the files are jpeg's, but it is very annoying. It does appear that I can still open and view the hidden jpeg's, but they shouldn't be flagged as hidden in the first place.

Thank you.

re: iCloud

ref: iCloud User Guide

Introduction to iCloud - Apple Support

From the Finder(?)

re: iCloud Drive (?)

Check your iCloud Drive file and folder status on Mac - Apple Support

eacat123 wrote:

Thank you for the reply but that doesn't address my question. I have files that are hidden. I can see them as grayed out in Finder. Now I want to permanently make them unhidden so they appear as normal, unhidden files in all my folders stored in iCloud. How can I unhide ALL of the hidden files?

stop using /Turn off the feature...and compare your results

iCloud drive missing desktop and documents

What happens when you turn off iCloud Drive or sign out of iCloud

Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

Recover deleted files on iCloud.com

Recover deleted files on iCloud.com - Apple Support

How to Restore Your Desktop and Documents After Disabling ...

https://www.howtogeek.com/273629/how-to-restore-your-desktop-and-documents-after-disabling-icloud-sync-in-macos-sierra/

How to find your Documents and Desktop folder contents after disabling ...

https://www.macworld.com/article/3396119/how-to-find-your-documents-and-desktop-folder-contents-after-disabling-icloud-sync.html

Finder>Go>Go to Folder>copy & paste:

~/iCloud Drive (Archive)

iCloud Drive (Archive) - here you should find all your files 

Syncing files with iCloud Drive does not hide files. I’ve heard Dropbox does, and maybe OneDrive.

When set up to sync Desktop & Documents to iCloud Drive, Finder will not show the two folders in your Home folder. It makes them accessible in the Sidebar under iCloud section.

The way to unhide them is entirely dependent on how they were hidden. You will need to use Terminal to unhide them if we can figure out why they were hidden.

eacat123 wrote:

This still isn't very helpful. I don't understand what you are suggesting I do. None of the files have been deleted from iCloud, nor are they missing; they are just hidden. And they are flagged as hidden in iCloud, so how would trying to restore them to iCloud help, when they are already on iCloud?

How do you see that they flagged as hidden in iCloud. iCloud does not hide files.

eacat123 wrote:

This has nothing to do with syncing with iCloud. These hidden files were all stored on iCloud 2+years ago; none are recent files.

Since I have no idea as to when these files became hidden, let alone how they were hidden, does this mean I will be permanently stuck with hidden files?

We have to figure out how they were hidden in order to unhide them. iCloud does not hide files that is not how it works at all. Something else has hidden them.

files can be hidden by pre-pending with a . Or the file flags changed to hidden the second is the most likely method, and we would be reversed by running the change flags command to set it to nohidden. But, whatever made them hidden will probably just make them hidden again unless you can figure out why.

eacat123 wrote:

I didn't do anything to cause these files to be hidden.

I didn’t suggest you did. I did suggest a couple of things that I know of that has been hiding files in case you were using them.

My question again, is if I don't know how they were hidden, does that mean I am stuck with hidden files? I really do want them to be unhidden.

And, I stated we can unhide them. I just don’t know if whatever you have that hid them well then re-hide them.

You’ll have to use the terminal both to figure out how they are hidden, and to unhide them.

I’m not on a Mac to make sure I can give you the correct syntax. I said it’ll probably be later tonight.