If you share your laptop with others, then removing the “Go to Folder” option will make it more difficult for these people to access buried, and potentially sensitive areas of your file system. If Apple chose to bury an item deep in the operating system, then it’s usually because editing or deleting that item would have serious negative consequences for your Mac, for example it might result in data loss, or cause one or more applications to stop working. Certain parts of your Mac are more difficult to access than others, such as the “Library” folder which is buried in an obscure corner of the file system. Although most of these customisations are visual tweaks that are easy to revert, if you’re fed up of logging into your Mac only to discover that someone has changed the Finder layout yet again, then you may benefit from hiding the “Preferences” setting! You can customize the Finder via its “Preferences” setting. Disabling the “Connect to server” option can also be useful if you share your Mac with someone who you suspect might go poking around in your server settings, and potentially break something by accident. You should hide this setting if you have a server that you want to keep private. This contains a “Restricted Finder” section, where you can disable or even completely remove the following options: If you share your Mac with children or less tech-savvy adults, then you can use TinkerTool to hide settings that would normally appear in the Finder, and allow others to change your Mac’s setup. Share your Mac with others? Hide important system settingsĪlthough TinkerTool can grant you access to hidden system features, you can also use it to restrict access to various features. Just be aware that while this option is enabled, you won’t be able to post any comments or assign any labels within your shared network folders. To apply your changes, select “Relaunch Finder.”.DS_Store files over a network connection.” In TinkerTool, select the “Finder” tab.If you’re sharing your network with people on other operating systems, then you can use TinkerTool to ensure macOS never generates. DS_Store files manually, macOS will create a replacement file each time you return to the shared directory, potentially confusing and frustrating the other people on your network. These files will be invisible to you, but they’ll be visible to anyone who isn’t using macOS, for example a colleague or family member who’s accessing the shared folder on their Linux or Windows PC.Įven if you delete these. However, these folders can quickly become a problem when you’re sharing a network with others – specifically, anyone who isn’t a fellow Mac user!Įvery time you access a shared directory, macOS will generate one or more. DS_Store files won’t be an issue, as they’re hidden by default and contain information that’s only useful to macOS. DS_Store file that contains metadata about that folder’s contents. DS_Store files over a network connectionĮvery time you view a folder, macOS creates a. To restore these files, folders and apps to a hidden state, repeat the above steps, but this time deselect the “Show hidden….” checkbox. Select the “Show hidden and system files” checkbox.You can use TinkerTool to uncover all of these hidden items, across your Mac: While you typically won’t need to access these hidden files, folders and apps on a day-to-day basis, there are some scenarios where you may require access, for example maybe you’re troubleshooting problems with macOS, or performing certain maintenance tasks. To help prevent users from accidentally editing or even deleting important files and data, macOS hides some items by default. Uncover hidden system files and applications Now that you’ve got TinkerTool setup, let’s look at a few of the changes you can make! Note that the available options may vary, depending on your version of macOS. Read the warning, and if you’re happy to proceed then click “Understood.” This launches the main TinkerTool interface.Once the file has downloaded, launch it and follow the onscreen instructions to install.If you’re unsure what version you’re running, select the “Apple’ logo from your Mac’s menu bar, and then select “About This Mac.” Note that Apple tend to make changes to their system preferences with every release of macOS, so you must use the correct version of TinkerTool for your version of macOS. Head over to the TinkerTool website and download the correct version of TinkerTool for your operating system.While I’ve always been able to quickly and easily roll back any changes I’ve made with TinkerTool, you may want to consider creating a full Time Machine backup, before you start using this app. While TinkerTool is typically easy-to-use and error-free, there’s always a chance you may encounter strange behaviour or unexpected side effects when using apps that make changes to system-level files, such as TinkerTool.
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