Show system files / Show git ignore in osx

By default it is not possible to see .gitignore files in osx. What is command to reveal these files?

Open the terminal and type

• on OS X 10.8:

    defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
  

• on OS X 10.9:

    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
  

Then you must relaunch finder:

killall Finder

Any file name in OS X prefixed with a '.' is considered "hidden".

⌘⇧. will toggle the AppleShowAllFiles setting.

This key combo will work from open/save dialogue boxes in all apps, not just the finder. Use this and you’ll never be confused when on someone else’s Mac or a new Mac, and you can avoid mucking around with defaults write.

I use the nemonic of “use a dot to show a dot file” to remember it, because of hidden dot files in unix.

You can use the shortcut in Finder:

Command + Shift + .

It will show the hidden files. To hide the files again, use the same shortcut.

if you just want to look at them you can always use the command line:

ls -al path/to/dir

If you want to always view all files from the finder you can do:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

If you just want to view a .gitignore from the finder you can:

chflags nohidden /path/to/dir/.gitignore

But youll have to call that command on every .gitignore its not global.

(more recent, for 10.10.2:)

The above commands didn't work for me. I'm using OSX Yosemite: 10.10.2. This worked though:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true;
killall Finder;

Source: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/08/04/how-to-show-hidden-files-folders-finder-mac/

You can edit hidden file in terminal using this command

open -a TextEdit .gitignore 

If you just want to view a .gitignore from the console just type "nano .gitignore" in that directory. This command "nano" simply opens any textfile in nano console environment for viewing or editing

In addition to the accepted answer, you can create an alias to easily show/hide the hidden files in Terminal. This is how I set it up (tested/working on macOS Mojave 10.14.1).

In my user directory I created a new file .custom_aliases and wrote this in:

# Show/hide files
alias showall='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder'
alias hideall='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false; killall Finder'

Next I opened .bash-profile (should also be in your user directory, if not just create it there) and added this to the top of the file:

# Load custom aliases
source ~/.custom_aliases

And that's it! Now whenever I need to view the hidden files I just type showall in Terminal and hideall when I'm done. You could also define the aliases directly in the .bash_profile, but I have some other stuff so I like to keep all the aliases together in a separate file.

Show hide file and folder on MacOs Mojave 10.14.4

> Apply at Terminal

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true;
killall Finder;

It's possible you might just not have a .gitignore file. If you don't have one, you can create it like this:

>touch ~/.gitignore

And then edit it however you'd like. Git will automatically check this file, without any additional configuration!