no hidden file?

[Jiggy1965]

I've dragged an email attachment to my desktop. Its name began with a dot so Mac sees it as a 'hidden file' and the icon can't be seen on the desktop. So I did a search with the 'kind' option set to 'visibility: invisible'. But it doesn't show any hidden files. No file that starts with a dot.
Terminal does show it when I use ls -a.

So why doesn't it show when I do a 'hidden file' search?

 

[ppc750fx]

Ah... and just like that we run into one of the few fun remaining hold-overs from the classic era...

There are actually two ways to hide a file in OS X. The first is the (more-or-less) standard *nix way, by starting the file name with a ".".

The second is the way that Mac OS used to do it, by setting a special flag in the file's metadata, specifically the invisible bit. Mac OS X supports this (and still uses it, at least to some extent). This is what your search query was including.

 

[Moof1904]

There are apps out there that allow you to quickly toggle show/hide invisible files. This is one of them:

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Automator-Actions---Workflows/Show-Hide-Invisible-Files.shtml

 

[mnkeybsness]

Open terminal application and type the following:

cd ~/Desktop
ls -lA

You will now see a verbose list of all items on your desktop. Locate the file you want that starts with a . For this purpose, I'll dub it ".yourfile". Back in Terminal:

mv .yourfile newfilename

your file will now be titled "newfilename" and appear on the desktop

 

[Jiggy1965]

I've located it by doing it the terminal way and removed the dot so it became visible again.

But I'm still curious why a ctrl-F search didn't find the file. I've set 'search' to look voor invisible files by setting the 'Kind' options. And the file is appearently made hidden by placing a dot in front of the file name. So the specific search query should find it? Or should I set the ctrl-F search to something else to search for hidden 'dot-files'?

 

[jmxp69]

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Restore to default:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder

That will show your files. I don't know why ctrl-f doesn't see them. Doesn't see them on mine with AllFiles enabled either.

J