Clean up my "Documents" folder!

June 18, 2008 3:23 PM

How do I hide folders in OS X that other programs need regular access to?

If you're like me and use a Mac with Applications on it, you'll find that your Documents folder is frequently cluttered up with stuff you don't want to see. I Have folders titled "Microsoft User Data", "OmniFocus Backups", and "Quicken Backup Folder" to name a few.

I want to hide these so I'm not bothered by them. I don't think I can do the typical Unix trick, when you begin the filename with a ".", the file is made invisible without disrupting Office, OmniFocus, and Quicken by changing the name of the folder. Is there any other way?

posted by mikespez to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Add their names to /.hidden at the root level of the disk and they'll go away, but still be accessible programmatically.
posted by bonaldi at 3:27 PM on June 18, 2008

(see here for more)
posted by bonaldi at 3:27 PM on June 18, 2008

If you have the developer tools installed, there's a utility called SetFile that will allow you to set the visibility flag for a file or folder.

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /path/to/file

Use lowercase v to flip it back to visible.
posted by Mikey-San at 5:16 PM on June 18, 2008

A simpler alternative: 1) Create a folder called "My Documents" or something and move all your stuff (the stuff you want to see) in there. Give it a purty icon. Put it in the finder sidebar or in your dock or on your desktop where you'll see it all the time. 2) Remove references to the plain old Documents folder from all those same places. Do not look in it anymore.
posted by quarterframer at 7:22 PM on June 18, 2008