Mac Terminal Search For Files

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To do this, select the following criteria for your search: System files include. However, even this will not search all files on your Mac (i.e. Items in hidden folders). To search all locations for a file, perform the following: Open Macintosh HD Applications Utilities Terminal. In the window that opens, type the following, then press Enter. Search for text in a file using Terminal on Mac. To locate a string within a file, use the grep tool. The grep tool searches the named input files for lines containing a match to the given pattern. By default, grep prints the matching lines. To search for a unique string in a file. Alias - Create an alias alloc - List used and free memory awk - Find and Replace text within file(s). Basename - Convert a full pathname to just a folder path bash - Bourne-Again SHell (Linux) bless - Set volume bootability and startup disk options. Break - Exit from a loop. Cal - Display a calendar case - Conditionally perform a command cat - Display the contents of a file cd - Change. Open up Terminal (Applications Utilities) and type in: sudo find / -iname.app. This will display all the apps you have on your computer. From there, you can copy and paste the results into a.

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When you look at your desktop, or inside any folder for that matter, on your Mac you’ll see a number (one that will vary depending on how well-organized you are) of file and folder icons. What all of us have in common, however, is a huge range of system files that are hidden just out of view.

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Those of us who have lived online for long enough will remember the Delete System32 hoax, with which trolls encouraged naive PC users to delete their Windows 2000 system directory. It’s not a shock that, since those days, developers have taken more care to hide away files that are essential to their operating systems.

There are, however, times when you need to access those files. Most of them are hidden away in the ~/Library folder, but the truth is that the average Mac holds a treasure trove of files and folders that you either no longer need or may want to access for troubleshooting purposes.

Is it normal that 'System' takes up 90GB+ of storage? What does it contain? How to get your System folder under control?

Three Ways to See Hidden Files on Mac

There’s good news for anyone out there who’s looking to access hidden files on their Mac: you can do exactly that, in a number of different ways, by arming yourself with a little bit of knowledge. There are a couple of Finder augmentation and replacement apps, for example, that make the process as easy as clicking a single button.

Before kicking off, however, it’s important to highlight that you should play it safe when digging through hidden files on your laptop or desktop. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for you can do some serious damage to your operating system, so you’ll want to proceed with caution. After all, these files are hidden for a reason!

See hidden files on Mac via Finder

As mentioned above, it doesn’t take much to make the hidden files on your Mac visible. In fact, you can check out all of the hidden files on your Mac by following just three easy steps:

  1. In Finder, open up your Macintosh HD folder
  2. Press Command+Shift+Dot
  3. Your hidden files will become visible. Repeat step 2 to hide them again!

This process will also work elsewhere, including your Documents or Applications folders. However, if you know what you’re looking for is in your ~/Library folder and would rather jump straight into that then you can take the following steps instead:

Mac Terminal Search For Files
  1. In Finder, hold down Alt and click Go at the top of your screen
  2. Click on Library to open up the, normally hidden, folder

Be prepared for one very cluttered looking Desktop if you decide to uncover all the hidden files there. If you’re anything like the average Mac user, most of what you’ll find will be made up of system files and autosaved Microsoft Word documents!

Some users have reported success finding documents that they thought were lost forever after their Mac crashed without saving, which is always a useful tip to have in the back pocket.

Unhide files on Mac with Terminal commands

Terminal, a Mac command-line interface, is included in macOS by default and allows you to use command prompts to control your Mac instead of following a potentially complex series of instructions to do the same thing in Finder.

If you’re already familiar with using Terminal, then you might prefer to run the following script to reveal your hidden files:

  1. Open Terminal
  2. Enter the following: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true [Press Return] killall Finder
  3. To hide files again, change the “true” in the step above to “false”

It doesn’t matter too much whether you use Terminal or Finder to make the hidden files on your Mac visible, though you might prefer the latter if you’ve never run scripts on Terminal before, as both routes accomplish the same thing.

One reason you might opt to use Terminal is that it allows you to hide any file or folder on your Mac, which is a great way to avoid that sense of residual curiosity felt by others should they come across a password protected .rar on your desktop! To hide files, just:

  1. Open Terminal
  2. Enter the following: chflags hidden [Press Space]
  3. Drag files or folders to be hidden from Finder into the Terminal window, which will display their paths in Terminal
  4. Press Return to hide

To make your files visible again, just repeat the above steps using “chflags nohidden” in place of “chflags hidden.” Of course, the fact that anyone else who knows this trick can also use it to unhide your files means that this isn’t an adequate substitute for other security measures.

Use file managers to access hidden files

How to find the path of a file in Mac? Apps like DCommander and Forklift, both of which perform like native macOS apps and function as extensions of Finder, represent great choices if you’re at all uncomfortable using Terminal or digging around in your ~/Library folder.

Because these apps allow you to make hidden files and folders visible (or invisible) using shortcuts or clicking buttons within the apps, they make the whole process incredibly simple. In Forklift, for example, you can show hidden files by:

  1. Clicking View
  2. Selecting View Options towards the bottom of the dropdown menu
  3. Checking the box next to Show Hidden Files

There’s also a button in the toolbar to show and hide hidden files. DCommander has a similar function available, with a Show System Files command, but you need to add it manually to the app’s toolbar:

As you might guess from those subtle differences in terminology, we would suggest that Forklift is more suitable for someone looking for something that really looks and acts like Finder. DCommander, with a larger range of features and toolbar buttons enabled by default, is still intuitive but feels a little more dense.

Whichever you settle on remember that just because these apps make accessing hidden files easy it doesn’t mean that you can’t do some real damage if you start messing around with the wrong thing!

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Leave hidden files to automatic cleanup

For some Mac users, the question of how to see hidden files is nothing more than succumbing to curiosity. For others, it’s a necessity for troubleshooting a piece of software or device that’s not performing as it should.

Somewhere in between are those in the pursuit of a few spare gigabytes as their hard drive rapidly fills up. If you’re one of those people looking to clean up useless hidden data then an app like CleanMyMac X might be exactly what you need:

  1. Open up the app and select Smart Scan
  2. Hit Scan
  3. Select Review Details underneath Cleanup to see how much System Junk you can safely delete
  4. Hit Run to remove those unneeded files

An app like CleanMyMac X will free up space just as effectively, probably more so, than you’ll be able to by randomly deleting hidden files and hoping for the best. If you do end up going this route then don’t consider learning more about hidden content a waste of time — at least you know what to watch out for if someone tries to troll you into deleting vital system files!

Best of all, DCommander, Forklift, and CleanMyMac X apps mentioned above are all available for a free trial through Setapp, a collection of more than 150 macOS apps from top developers all over the world.

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Terminal on macOS is the equivalent of the Command Prompt on Windows. It allows Mac users to execute tasks using commands. When normal processes don’t work, using commands to troubleshoot issues is usually the go-to solution. You can type in any kind of command in the Terminal window — from launching apps to removing files to installing updates.

If you’re using macOS Catalina, you can launch Terminal by going to Finder > Applications > Utilities, then double-click on Terminal. You can also search for Terminal using Spotlight, which saves you a few clicks.

What is the Mac Terminal Error “Terminal .profile: No such file or directory”?

When using the Terminal, any two or all of these files are usually involved:

  • .bash_profile
  • .profile
  • .bashrc

However, several Mac users have recently reported encountering the Terminal .profile: No such file or directory when using Terminal. When this error happens, Terminal is not able to execute the command because it can’t find the required .profile file.

This error might be problematic because the .profile file usually contains the initialization codes. Without the .profile file, the Terminal is not able to set the environment variables necessary throughout your command line sessions.

By default, Mac’s use the program “bash” as the command line shell. When you start up Terminal, it launches a “login shell” by starting the program /bin/bash . This program then looks for two files in your user’s [home directory][homedir]: .bash_profile and .profile.

It’s important to note that if bash finds .bash_profile , it will run that file, otherwise it will run .profile . There may come a time when you install a software development command-line tool that creates a .bash_profile , and you can find all the things you put in .profile are not being set up. Likewise, you might install a software command line tool that only expects things to be initialized in .profile and then that tool’s setting won’t happen correctly. It’s confusing, to be sure.

What Causes the “Terminal .profile: No such file or directory Error”?

Terminal

It is not clear why this error happens, but one of the possible reasons is the accidental deletion of the .profile file by a third-party app or by the user itself.

It is also possible that the file was deleted by a Mac cleaning app or an optimizer app that categorized it as an unnecessary file. Hence, it is important not to use unreliable or free cleaner apps because it could just lead to more problems in the future.

You should also consider the presence of malware. Some types of malware attack important files that are required for running important troubleshooting tasks, such as files associated with the anti-malware app, the macOS security features, or the Terminal.

If you encounter this error, this article will provide with the step-by-step process on how to fix the Terminal .profile: No such file or directory error on Mac.

How to Fix “Terminal .profile: No such file or directory” Error

If Terminal is not able to locate the .profile file, there are several ways to go about this issue. Let’s look at them one by one.

Fix #1: Create a .profile File.

The first step you need to take is to create a new .profile file. You can do this by typing this in the Terminal in your /User/user folder: touch .profile

Once done, log out of your Terminal and relaunch it again. It should now detect the .profile file.

Fix #2: Manually Direct to .bash or Another Shell.

When the .profile is not available, the .bash file is the next to be read. If, for some reason, the .bash file is not read, you can manually redirect Terminal to the .bash file by using this command: $ sh /path/to/shell Likely $ sh /bin/bash.

Fix #3: Delete the .bash File.

If the .profile is not being read because the .bash file is read first instead, you can delete the .bash file to see if it will read the .profile file. To delete the .bash file, type this command line in the Terminal window: rm ~/.bash_profile.

Summary

Getting the “Terminal .profile: No such file or directory” error can be problematic because it means that the .profile file is missing or cannot be read, therefore Terminal won’t work properly. If this the case, you can try the solutions above to see which one would work.

Mac Terminal Find File

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