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Should I leave Automatic Updates on?If you hate waiting for app updates to download, then yes. That way, whenever you want to update, it'll be ready and waiting for you. Apple will never install an update without your express permission — or action! Turn off automatic software updates mac. — but it'll make sure you don't have to wait when you want to install it.If you have limited bandwidth or you don't want to update to newer versions of an app — for example if you're running a production system and need to wait for apps or drivers to update first — then no. Leave it unchecked and only download when you're sure you really want to.

  1. Open Any Files App Mac
  2. Mac Preferences Profiles
  3. Open System Preferences On Mac
  4. Mac Hidden App Preference Files Mac

Your Mac has a secret. Thousands of them in fact, in the form of hidden files and folders lurking on its hard drive or SSD. Don’t worry, though. These files and folders are all supposed to be there. In fact, many of them are essential.

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: In Finder, open up your Macintosh HD folder; Press Command+Shift+Dot. May 18, 2020  You can control which apps have access to files and folders on the Mac. This article will walk you through how to manage what apps can access files and folders in macOS. This is a security feature that is relatively new, helping to precent apps from having full access to the Mac and filesystem if that access is not necessary. Apr 11, 2014  These plist files are usually named after the developer and application names, so for instance, the preference file for Apple’s TextEdit program is called “com.apple.TextEdit.plist” The property lists for your applications’ preferences are stored in this folder.

  • To discover the public preference panes, use the path /Library/PreferencePanes. As soon as you learn which folder contains the needed preference pane, you can use Finder to access that folder directly. Please mind, the Library folder may be hidden on a Mac by default. Experienced Mac users can run Terminal commands to show hidden folders.
  • The Library Folder on your Mac contains Preference Files, Caches, and Application Support Data. While regular Mac users may not find the need to access the Hidden Library Folder, advanced Mac users will at times come across the need to access files inside the Library Folder for.

Many of these files are in your Mac’s main Library folder or in the ~/Library folder, which is in your User folder. Both these Library folders are hidden, but inside them are folders and files that hold things like preferences for apps.

In this article, we’ll tell you how you can view hidden files on your Mac and make your Library folder visible.

What are the hidden files on Mac?

The hidden files are a throwback to macOS’ Unix roots. In fact, the convention of naming them starting with a “.” comes from Unix. For that reason, you can’t use a “.” at the start of a regular file name, otherwise OS X will hide it.

The files themselves contain data like access rights and privileges for files and folders, application support files, and preferences.

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There are a number of reasons files and folders are hidden. Mostly, though, it’s because they contain data critical to the smooth running of your Mac and that you shouldn’t interfere with. In addition, there’s no real reason for most users to see or access them. Also, if they were all visible, your Mac would look horribly cluttered.

How to view hidden files on Mac

Before you make your Mac show hidden files, it’s important to remember they’ve been hidden for a reason. The data they contain could cause havoc if you delete or alter it and don’t know what you’re doing.

If your goal in viewing, for example ~/Library is so you can manually delete application support files for a program you’ve uninstalled, consider using a dedicated uninstaller like CleanMyMac X. That will make it easy to remove all the files associated with an application with one click. You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.

CleanMyMac X will also allow you to get rid of all the hidden files you no longer need. Many of these files are created and used then not needed anymore. They just sit there clogging up your hard drive. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac, identifies this system junk and allows you to quickly and easily get rid of it, potentially several gigabytes of disk space.

If you still want to view hidden files on your Mac, you need to go to the Finder and do the following:

  1. Open a new Finder window and click on the name of your Mac under ‘Devices’ in the sidebar.
  2. Click on Macintosh HD, or whatever you’ve called your startup drive if you’ve renamed it.
  3. Press Command-Shift-. (period). You should now see lots of files and folders who’s name starts with “.” become visible.
  4. To re-hide the files and folders, hold down Command-Shift-. again.

How to view your Mac’s ~/Library folder

There are a couple of methods for making your ~/Library folder visible. Here’s the simplest:

  1. Click on the Finder in the Dock.
  2. Open a new Finder window and navigate to your user folder (Tip: if it’s not in the sidebar, go to the Finder menu, choose Preferences, click Sidebar and check the box next to your Home folder)
  3. Click on the Go menu.
  4. Hold down the Option (Alt) key.
  5. You should see that in the dropdown menu, Library appears below Home. Click on it.

Alternatively, do this to view your Library folder:

  1. Click on the Finder in the Dock.
  2. Click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.
  3. In the window that opens, type “~/Library”

With both these methods, your Library folder will disappear again when you close the Finder window. It’s easy enough to run through the steps above again to make it visible again when you need to, but if you want it permanently accessible, there are a couple of ways to do it.

The quickest is to drag the Library folder to the Finder’s sidebar. That will create a shortcut to it that will persist. If you want to keep ~/Library visible but don’t want it clogging up the sidebar in Finder windows, do this:

  1. Click on the Finder in the Dock.
  2. Click on the View menu and choose Show View Options.
  3. Check the box labelled Show Library Folder at the bottom of the window.

How to make macOS show hidden files using Terminal

If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can use the Terminal command line interface to view hidden files and folders. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Open Terminal from the Utilities folder in Applications, or by searching for it using Spotlight. You can also use the Go menu in the Finder to go directly to the Utilities folder.
  2. Type, or copy and paste, this command: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true
  3. Press Return
  4. Type: killall Finder

To hide the files again, repeat the above steps, but replace ‘true’ with ‘false’ at the end of step 2.

How to hide any file or folder using Terminal

Hidden

Now that you know how to view hidden files and folders on your Mac, you may be wondering how you can hide other files or folders, to keep them away from prying eyes. There are a number of third-party applications and utilities that offer to do this for you, but you can do it yourself in Terminal, like this:

  1. Launch Terminal.
  2. Type: chflags hidden
  3. Press the spacebar.
  4. Drag the file or folder you want to hide from the Finder onto the Terminal window.
  5. You’ll see the path to the file or folder displayed in Terminal after the command you typed.
  6. Hit Return to execute the command.

The file or folder you dragged onto the Terminal window will now be hidden. To see it again, use one of the methods described above to see hidden files.

To make the file visible permanently again, use the steps above, but in step 2 type: chflags nohidden

As you can see, viewing hidden files and folders on your Mac is very straightforward. There are a number of ways to do it, and you can make them visible temporarily or permanently.

However, just because you can view hidden files, doesn’t mean you should — the files are usually hidden because accidentally deleting them or altering them could cause chaos on your Mac. So, while it’s fine to have a peek, don’t do anything with the hidden files unless you know what you’re doing.

If you want to declutter your Mac or uninstall applications, use a dedicated application like CleanMyMac X. It will safely remove all useless files, add-ons, broken login items, caches, large and old files you didn't know about. Most likely, you won't even need to look for hidden files — CleanMyMac will do all the job for you.

We also showed that many of those files are stored in Library folders, including the one in your User folder, ~/Library. That folder is hidden by default, but you can view it or make it permanently visible using the techniques described above.

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Unlike the software developed for Windows system, most of the applications installed in Mac OS X generally can be removed with relative ease. Steam is a third party application that provides additional functionality to OS X system and enjoys a popularity among Mac users. However, instead of installing it by dragging its icon to the Application folder, uninstalling Steam may need you to do more than a simple drag-and-drop to the Trash.

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When installed, Steam creates files in several locations. Generally, its additional files, such as preference files and application support files, still remains on the hard drive after you delete Steam from the Application folder, in case that the next time you decide to reinstall it, the settings of this program still be kept. But if you are trying to uninstall Steam in full and free up your disk space, removing all its components is highly necessary. Continue reading this article to learn about the proper methods for uninstalling Steam.

Manually uninstall Steam step by step:

Most applications in Mac OS X are bundles that contain all, or at least most, of the files needed to run the application, that is to say, they are self-contained. Thus, different from the program uninstall method of using the control panel in Windows, Mac users can easily drag any unwanted application to the Trash and then the removal process is started. Despite that, you should also be aware that removing an unbundled application by moving it into the Trash leave behind some of its components on your Mac. To fully get rid of Steam from your Mac, you can manually follow these steps:

1. Terminate Steam process(es) via Activity Monitor

Before uninstalling Steam, you’d better quit this application and end all its processes. If Steam is frozen, you can press Cmd +Opt + Esc, select Steam in the pop-up windows and click Force Quit to quit this program (this shortcut for force quit works for the application that appears but not for its hidden processes).

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder in Launchpad, and select All Processes on the drop-down menu at the top of the window. Select the process(es) associated with Steam in the list, click Quit Process icon in the left corner of the window, and click Quit in the pop-up dialog box (if that doesn’t work, then try Force Quit).

2. Delete Steam application using the Trash

First of all, make sure to log into your Mac with an administrator account, or you will be asked for a password when you try to delete something.

Open the Applications folder in the Finder (if it doesn’t appear in the sidebar, go to the Menu Bar, open the “Go” menu, and select Applications in the list), search for Steam application by typing its name in the search field, and then drag it to the Trash (in the dock) to begin the uninstall process. Alternatively you can also click on the Steam icon/folder and move it to the Trash by pressing Cmd + Del or choosing the File and Move to Trash commands.

For the applications that are installed from the App Store, you can simply go to the Launchpad, search for the application, click and hold its icon with your mouse button (or hold down the Option key), then the icon will wiggle and show the “X” in its left upper corner. Click the “X” and click Delete in the confirmation dialog.

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3. Remove all components related to Steam in Finder

Though Steam has been deleted to the Trash, its lingering files, logs, caches and other miscellaneous contents may stay on the hard disk. For complete removal of Steam, you can manually detect and clean out all components associated with this application. You can search for the relevant names using Spotlight. Those preference files of Steam can be found in the Preferences folder within your user’s library folder (~/Library/Preferences) or the system-wide Library located at the root of the system volume (/Library/Preferences/), while the support files are located in '~/Library/Application Support/' or '/Library/Application Support/'.

Open Any Files App Mac

Open the Finder, go to the Menu Bar, open the “Go” menu, select the entry: Go to Folder.. and then enter the path of the Application Support folder:~/Library

Search for any files or folders with the program’s name or developer’s name in the ~/Library/Preferences/, ~/Library/Application Support/ and ~/Library/Caches/ folders. Right click on those items and click Move to Trash to delete them.

Meanwhile, search for the following locations to delete associated items:

  • /Library/Preferences/
  • /Library/Application Support/
  • /Library/Caches/

Besides, there may be some kernel extensions or hidden files that are not obvious to find. In that case, you can do a Google search about the components for Steam. Usually kernel extensions are located in in /System/Library/Extensions and end with the extension .kext, while hidden files are mostly located in your home folder. You can use Terminal (inside Applications/Utilities) to list the contents of the directory in question and delete the offending item.

4. Empty the Trash to fully remove Steam

If you are determined to delete Steam permanently, the last thing you need to do is emptying the Trash. To completely empty your trash can, you can right click on the Trash in the dock and choose Empty Trash, or simply choose Empty Trash under the Finder menu (Notice: you can not undo this act, so make sure that you haven’t mistakenly deleted anything before doing this act. If you change your mind, before emptying the Trash, you can right click on the items in the Trash and choose Put Back in the list). In case you cannot empty the Trash, reboot your Mac.

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Tips for the app with default uninstall utility:

Mac Preferences Profiles

You may not notice that, there are a few of Mac applications that come with dedicated uninstallation programs. Though the method mentioned above can solve the most app uninstall problems, you can still go for its installation disk or the application folder or package to check if the app has its own uninstaller first. If so, just run such an app and follow the prompts to uninstall properly. After that, search for related files to make sure if the app and its additional files are fully deleted from your Mac.

Automatically uninstall Steam with MacRemover (recommended):

No doubt that uninstalling programs in Mac system has been much simpler than in Windows system. But it still may seem a little tedious and time-consuming for those OS X beginners to manually remove Steam and totally clean out all its remnants. Why not try an easier and faster way to thoroughly remove it?

If you intend to save your time and energy in uninstalling Steam, or you encounter some specific problems in deleting it to the Trash, or even you are not sure which files or folders belong to Steam, you can turn to a professional third-party uninstaller to resolve troubles. Here MacRemover is recommended for you to accomplish Steam uninstall within three simple steps. MacRemover is a lite but powerful uninstaller utility that helps you thoroughly remove unwanted, corrupted or incompatible apps from your Mac. Now let’s see how it works to complete Steam removal task.

1. Download MacRemover and install it by dragging its icon to the application folder.

Open System Preferences On Mac

2. Launch MacRemover in the dock or Launchpad, select Steam appearing on the interface, and click Run Analysis button to proceed.
3. Review Steam files or folders, click Complete Uninstall button and then click Yes in the pup-up dialog box to confirm Steam removal.

The whole uninstall process may takes even less than one minute to finish, and then all items associated with Steam has been successfully removed from your Mac!

Benefits of using MacRemover:

MacRemover has a friendly and simply interface and even the first-time users can easily operate any unwanted program uninstallation. With its unique Smart Analytic System, MacRemover is capable of quickly locating every associated components of Steam and safely deleting them within a few clicks. Thoroughly uninstalling Steam from your mac with MacRemover becomes incredibly straightforward and speedy, right? You don’t need to check the Library or manually remove its additional files. Actually, all you need to do is a select-and-delete move. As MacRemover comes in handy to all those who want to get rid of any unwanted programs without any hassle, you’re welcome to download it and enjoy the excellent user experience right now!

This article provides you two methods (both manually and automatically) to properly and quickly uninstall Steam, and either of them works for most of the apps on your Mac. If you confront any difficulty in uninstalling any unwanted application/software, don’t hesitate to apply this automatic tool and resolve your troubles.

Mac Hidden App Preference Files Mac

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