How to show hidden files in windows
How to show hidden files and folders in Windows 10, and hide files of your own
There are a few reasons you might need to view a hidden file on Windows 10.
Maybe a folder is bigger than the files in it, and you want to see why. Or you’re pretty sure a virus has infected your computer, and you think you know where it might be. Or maybe you’ve been using hidden folders as a way to keep your private files away from prying eyes.
Whatever the case, viewing these hidden files and folders is a simple process.
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How to show hidden files or folders on a Windows 10 computer
1. Press the Windows icon at the bottom-left of your screen. and search for the This PC application. Click it to open it.
2. You’ll be greeted with a listing of all your computer’s drives. Open the one that has the files you’re looking for. In most cases, «C:» will be the one you need.
3. Once you’re on the next page, at the top of the window there should be a toolbar with a button that says «View.» Click on that.
4. Find the checkbox called «Hidden Items.» Click it so that a checkbox appears.
5. As long as Hidden Items remains checked, you’ll be able to view any hidden file or folder.
You can tell that a file or folder was marked as hidden by its icon, which will be slightly transparent.
You can also mark a file or folder as hidden, which is a good way to keep your files private. Here’s how:
How to make a hidden file or folder on a Windows 10 computer
1. Find the file or folder you want to hide.
2. Right-click it, and select «Properties.»
3. In the menu that appears, check the box that’s labeled «Hidden.»
4. Click «OK» at the bottom of the window.
5. Your file or folder is now hidden.
You can uncheck a hidden file or folder at any time to make it visible.
Usually system files and folders are hidden for a reason, and it’s best to know that reason before you edit files that are hidden by default.
Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:
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How to set up dual monitors on your Windows 10 computer and double the screen size of your workspace
How to change the screen brightness on any Windows 10 computer in 2 ways
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How To Show Hidden Files In Windows 10
Plus how to hide them again
If you don’t already know, your computer has many more files than what you normally see in the File Explorer. Many of these files are hidden by your system for certain reasons. However, if you wish to access them, you can get your machine to show hidden files in Windows 10.
Once you’ve made the hidden files visible using any of the methods, you’ll find them available ready to use in your folders with File Explorer.
Use File Explorer To Show Hidden Files In Windows 10
The easiest way to show hidden files in Windows 10 is to enable an option in the File Explorer utility. It’ll then make all of the hidden files visible to you on your screen and it only takes turning on a single option in the tool.
Use Control Panel To Show Hidden Files In Windows 10
If you’re someone who likes to use the traditional Control Panel utility to change your settings, you’ll be glad to know you can use it as well to show hidden files on your Windows 10 computer. Once again, it only requires enabling a single option.
Edit a Registry Key To Enable Hidden Files In Windows 10
You’ll probably not want to use a registry method for a task like showing hidden files but if that’s what you prefer for your tasks, you can use it and make all of your hidden files visible in your file manager.
Recognizing Hidden Files In Windows 10
If this is your first time enabling and accessing hidden files on your machine, you’ll probably have no idea what these files look like. Even though these files are exactly the same as any other files on your computer, these look a bit different than the regular files when you view them in the Explorer.
After enabling the option to show hidden files, you’ll see these files with a more light color to their icons. If you’re looking at a hidden folder, you’ll see that its icon doesn’t look as solid as that of a regular folder.
Recognizing hidden files and folders amidst all the regular ones shouldn’t be too difficult as their appearance makes it really easy for you to find them.
Hiding Files In Windows 10
If you’re done with what you wanted to do with your hidden files, you might want to disable them again on your computer. This way, they won’t come in your way when you’re working with the regular files on your computer.
Hiding back the hidden files is pretty easy actually in Windows 10. All you need to do is disable an option in the method that you used to enable these files and you’ll be all set.
Why Certain Files Are Always Hidden
If you’re anything like us, you’ll probably be curious to find out exactly why your computer hides certain files on your system. While those of you hiding their own files will have their own reasons for doing so, Microsoft actually only has a single reason for it: to prevent any accidental damage to your computer.
Most files that are hidden by default are actually your core system files. They’re hidden to ensure they don’t get deleted or modified. Since these are core files, even a bit of a modification to them may lead to the malfunction of the overall system.
Wrap Up
If you used any of these methods to unhide your files, we’d like to know what those files were and why you chose to unhide them. We await your response in the comments below.
Mahesh has been obsessed with technology since he got his first gadget a decade or so ago. Over the last few years, he’s written a number of tech articles on various online publications including but not limited to MakeTechEasier and Android AppStorm. Read Mahesh’s Full Bio
How to Show Hidden Files Windows 10 (CMD + 4 Ways) [MiniTool News]
By Alisa | Follow | Last Updated December 11, 2019
Summary :
In this tutorial, you can learn how to show hidden files and folders in Windows 10 with CMD and other 4 ways. Also check how to show hidden files in Windows 10 with File Explorer, Control Panel, Registry or Folder Options. MiniTool software also offers a top data recovery program to help you recover any deleted/lost file in Windows 10.
Windows hide some files and folders related to the OS by default, to avoid accidental deletion or altering from users which may cause the malfunction of system. However, if you are a tech fanatic, and want to make the hidden files visible, you can try the solutions below to show hidden files Windows 10.
How to Show Hidden Files Windows 10 with CMD
You can open Command Prompt in Windows 10 to show hidden files with attrib command. Detailed steps are as follows.
Step 1. Press Windows + R, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open elevated Command Prompt in your Windows 10 computer.
To help you better understand this attrib command, below is the explanation of each part of the command line.
How to Show Hidden Files Windows 10 with File Explorer
You can also show hidden files in Windows 10 with File Explorer. Check how to do it.
Step 1. You can click This PC to open File Explorer on Windows 10. You should expand the menu bar in File Explorer. If you don’t see the menu bar, you can click the ^ icon at the upper-right corner of File Explorer window.
Step 2. Next you can click View tab, and tick Hidden items box in Show/Hide section. This will let you view the hidden files and folders in Windows 10.
If you need to modify more file viewing options, you can click Options.
How to Show Hidden Files Windows 10 with Control Panel
Another way to show hidden files in Windows 10 is through Control Panel.
Step 1. To open Control Panel Windows 10, you can click the Control Panel desktop shortcut icon, or click Start, type control panel, and select Control Panel to open it.
Step 2. Next you can click Appearance and Personalization, and click File Explorer Options.
Step 3. Then you can click View tab in File Explorer Options window. Find Show hidden files, folders, and drives option under Advanced settings, tick this option and click Apply and OK to reveal hidden files and folders.
If you also want to see the hidden operating system files, you can uncheck the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) option.
How to Show Hidden Files Windows 10 with Registry
Another way to view the hidden files in Windows 10 is to use Windows Registry Editor.
Step 1. You can press Windows + R, type regedit, and hit Enter to open Registry Editor in Windows 10.
Step 2. Next click as follows to find the target registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, and click Advanced key.
Step 3. Then you can find the Hidden REG_DWORD in the right window, double-click it, and set its data value as 1 to show hidden files, folders, and drives in Windows 10. If you don’t want to show hidden files, folders, and drives in future, you can follow the same operation to change its data value to the default 2.
You can also find the ShowSuperHidden REG_DWORD, double click it and change its data value to 1 to show protected operating system files in Windows 10. The default data value is 2 which will not show protected OS files.
How to Show Hidden Files Windows 10 with Folder Options
Then you can click View tab in Folder Options window, and navigate Show hidden files, folders, and drives option under Advanced settings. Tick this option and click Apply and OK to show hidden files and folders in your Windows 10 computer.
Bottom Line
This post introduces 5 ways to provide a full Windows 10 show hidden files guide to you. You can try any of them to show hidden files and folders in Windows 10.
As for recovering deleted/lost files and data from your Windows 10 computer and other storage devices, you can try MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a 100% clean and free data recovery program.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Position: Columnist
Alisa is a professional English editor with 4-year experience. She loves writing and focuses on sharing detailed solutions and thoughts for computer problems, data recovery & backup, digital gadgets, tech news, etc. Through her articles, users can always easily get related problems solved and find what they want. In spare time, she likes basketball, badminton, tennis, cycling, running, and singing. She is very funny and energetic in life, and always brings friends lots of laughs.
How to Show Hidden Files in Windows 10
By default, Microsoft Windows 10 hides certain files from view when you explore them on your hard drive. This protects important files from being deleted so that the system isn’t damaged. If you’re the geeky type, you’ll want to be able to view all files all the time. Follow these steps to show hidden files.
Option 1 – From File Explorer
Option 2 – From Control Panel
Option 3 – Via Registry
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Filed Under: Windows Tagged With: Windows 10
Reader Interactions
Comments
I have nokia lumia 520.
I want to convert it into android.I want to know that after installing the android. Will my sim card work and data connection.
I have reinstalled the USB driver successfully. Though, Samsung dex did not recognize my device.
This one worked. Thanks for the guidance. It really helped me alot.
Ok, I just checked this out… here’s an example where the attrib method (below) will show files when the author’s method will not. To illustrate, configure Explorer to show all files as outlined in this article. Then,
1) Open a 2nd Windows Explore and navigate to C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent Items
2) Shift select and delete these files (or move them to a temp location; I think advanced “Disk Cleanup” tool will delete as well).
Also, note that all the advanced “show file” setting made earlier are still intact.
Next open a command prompt in the …\Recent Items folder. To do this:
1) Open a 3rd explorer window and navigate *in the left panel* to C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows
2) With your mouse over the “Windows” folder *still in the left panel*, hold down Left-Shift + Right Mouse Click to get the advanced context menu, click on “Open command window here”
3) In the …\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows> command prompt, key in: “cd recent”
4) Key in …\recent\> attrib *.*
You should see a bunch of files not shown in explorer.
Charles Davis says
The current version of Win 10 looks and works differently, so this just confused me.
I don`t have CurrentVersion in Windows from HKEY_CURRENT_USER, please help me!
No. Unable to change entry. Received notice “Cannot edit Hidden. Error writing the value’s new contents”.
This saved me so much time! Thank you!
This saved me so much time! Thank you!
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How To Show Hidden Files In Windows
The Windows 7 operating system, like its predecessors Windows Vista and Windows XP, hides certain files by default. This is largely done to protect system and application files from users who may attempt to delete or modify them (often unknowingly).
Update: The following article applies to newer versions of Windows as well.
There are four different hide options in Window 7: protected operating system files, files and folders with the hidden flag, hidden drives, and file extensions.
The hidden file feature often confuses users looking for a specific file or folder,since hidden files won’t be displayed until their hidden flag is lifted or hidden files revealed in the operating system. So, a file that should be there is not because it is not visible to the user.
Hidden file extensions causes different issues. While you see the file, you don’t see its extension if the type is on Microsoft’s list of popular extensions.
How To Show Hidden Files In Windows
All settings related to hidden files and folders are configurable in the Folder Option dialog. The easiest way to get there is to click on the Control Panel in the Start menu.
A click on the Appearance and Personalization category will display a link to the Folder Options where the hidden file and folder settings can be configured.
Another option is to open a Windows Explorer window, click the Organize link in the toolbar, and from there click on Folder and Search options. The Hidden files and folders options are to be found on the View tab under Advanced Settings.
Note : If you are using Windows 8 or newer, do the following instead: Open File Explorer on the system and click on File > Options. Switch to View when the new window opens.
The four entries of relevance in the menu are:
Hidden files and folders
The NTFS file system used by Windows supports several attributes that can be assigned to files, such as Read Only, Encrypted, Compressed or Hidden.
Hidden files and folders are simply normal files with the Hidden attribute. Windows Explorer will not display files with the Hidden attribute to the user if the Folder Options setting is configured as such, however the operating system and applications have normal access to those files, and the user could run these files as well by referencing them directly.
Changing the Windows Explorer setting to «Show hidden files, folders and drives» shows all hidden files and folders on the system, with the exception of protected operating system files.
Hide protected operating system files
Operating system files are files that get installed with Windows or after updates of the operating system. These files are necessary for the operation of the system and tampering with them can have unforeseen consequences.
Windows users come into contact with these files only when they follow a tweaking guide that asks them to manipulate such a file for instance.
Removing the checkmark from the selection box displays all protected operating system files in Windows Explorer. This is not recommended as it increases the chance that these files may be edited or deleted accidentally by the user.
Hide extensions for known file types
Windows hides the file extension of known file types by default. This mean that file.txt will be displayed simply as «file», and application.exe will be displayed simply as «application». This setting is often problematic as it sometimes becomes difficult to identify a file type by its icon alone. It is generally recommended to display file extensions all the time to avoid this problems and make file identification easier.
Hide empty drives in the computer folder
Empty drives such as empty DVD drives are hidden by default on the Windows operating system. This is an interesting feature that might cause some confusion, especially on new PCs. Users who do not see their DVD drive in My Computer might think that it is not properly installed or broken. Users who wish to display all drives all the time can uncheck the associated option to hide empty drives.