For some bizarre reason our friends at Apple have never included an easy method of viewing hidden files and folders in OS X.

Sure, you can do a google search and get the exact code to enter into the Terminal, but there’s a reason I use a Mac and not some obscure variant of Unix.

Today I stumbled across a great little utility for turning the hidden file view on and off. Where? Surprisingly, on the Apple site.

showHiddenFiles does exactly what Apple should have included in the first place. The only thing that could make it better would be if it was a checkbox in Finder.app, but I guess it’s too much to hope for for Apple to include it in the upcoming 10.6.3 release.

I just put it into my Applications > Utilities folder hoping that I’ll remember it’s there next time I need it.