Find Hidden Files and Folders in Windows

What do you do if you suspect someone is hiding files on their computer? People often set their files or folders to Hidden mode to keep them from being displayed. Luckily, you can quickly change the settings to show these secret files for all to see in File Explorer in Windows. Follow this guide to learn how.

Steps

Revealing Hidden Files and Folders

  1. Open the Folder Options window. Click the Start menu and enter “folder options” into the Search field. Select Folder Options from the search results.
    • In Windows 8, type “folder options” when at the Start screen.
  2. Click the View tab. This menu lets you configure what is displayed in folders. In the list of checkboxes, look for the “Hidden files and folders” subsection.
  3. Set hidden items to display. Click the option for “Show hidden files and folders”. When you click Apply, hidden files and folders will appear in their locations with grayed-out icons.[1]
    • You can hide hidden files and folders by clicking the other option, “Don’t show hidden files and folders”.

Searching for Hidden Files and Folders

  1. Start a Search. You need to know the file or folder name, or the file extension for this method to work. Click the Start menu and enter your search term into the Search field. Click the Search Everywhere button. In Windows 8, press the Windows key + E to open the Explorer, and then click the Search tab.[2]
    • For file or folder name, enter the name into the search field.
    • If you are trying to find hidden files of a specific type, such as images, use an asterisk (*) in place of the filename, and include the extension. For example:
      • *.jpg
      • *.doc
      • *.avi
  2. Set the search to show hidden files. By default, hidden files won’t be searched. After the Search starts, click the “Advanced Search” button. Check the box labeled “Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow).
  3. Click the Search button. Once you’ve checked the box, click the Search button to restart the search, this time looking at hidden files and folders as well.

Setting a File or Folder to Hidden

  1. Find the file or folder that you want to hide. Right-click on it and select Properties.
  2. Select the General tab. Look for the Attributes section.
  3. Check the Hidden box. If you are hiding a folder with other folders in it, you will be given the option to set those other folders to Hidden as well.
  4. Click Apply. The folder will become Hidden, and will not appear unless you have followed the steps in the first section.

Using CMD with a Flash Drive

  1. Plug in your thumb drive into the USB port.
  2. Just after the computer detects the flash drive, open My Computer (or you can simply press “Windows + E” keys together) and identify the drive letter for the flash drive. In this example, the drive letter for the flash drive is ‘E’. You might be able to see some or all the files and/or folders are transparent (this is actually the hidden files/folders). In case you didn’t see any files, no need to worry because it is due to the explorer setting which restricts the user from viewing the hidden files. You might be able to see it later once the process is complete.
  3. Click on windows START button then click ‘RUN’ and you'll get a run window like the image displayed below. Type ‘cmd’ in the textbox given then press ‘OK’ button.
  4. Inside the new window (this is actually MS-DOS prompt), type the drive letter for the flash drive followed by colon ‘:’. In this example our drive letter for the flash drive is ‘E’. Therefore, type ‘e:’ then press ‘enter’ key. Next, type “attrib –s –h *.* /S /D”. Wait until you see ‘E:\>’ prompt again just after the command you typed before. (Please be patient since the process of recovering hidden files might take few moments depends on the number of files/folders in the flash drive.)
  5. Once the process completed, open My Computer again and the hidden files will appear in your flash drive again..

Warnings

  • Do not delete hidden or system files if you do not know what they do. Many of these files are hidden for a reason. Consult the internet or a friend who is proficient with computers before deleting, editing or moving any of these files. Sometimes this can make a computer un-bootable.

Video

Show Hidden Files and Folders in Windows

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/change-folder-options
  2. ↑ http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/win8/windows8-search-files.htm
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