Window 10 comes with a lot of files as compared to what it shows in File Explorer. So, the question arises, where those files are? Why they are not visible? Actually, Window 10 comes with a feature of hiding files, your system also hides these files because of some reason. However, you can access them just by doing some changes to your system.

In this article, you are going to see “How to view/show hidden files & folders in Window 10“, once you made this setting to show hidden files you’ll find every hidden file and make them available ready to use in your files and folders.

Method 1

Use File Explorer to show hidden files in Windows 10

Step 1: Select the “Start” button, then open “File Explorer” by searching it.

Step 2: Now, on top of File Explorer you can see the “view” section.

Step 3: Check the “Hidden items” box to view hidden items.

This is the easiest method to find hidden files in your system to unhide all hidden files and folders in Windows 10.

Method 2

Use Control Panel to show hidden files in Window 10

Step 1: Click on “Start“, search for “Control Panel“, and open it.

Step 2: Select “Appearance and Personalization” in the control panel, then select “File Explorer Options“

Also read: Make your Smartphone Hack-proof from Hackers

Step 3: Now, new window pop-ups, select the “view” tab.

Step 4: Now you scroll a little bit and find the “Hide find and folders” option, their select box “Show hidden files, folders and drives” or you can either uncheck “Hide protected operating system files” as well.

Step 5: Now, click on “Apply” and close that window box.

This is the second-best way to un-hide any hidden files even protected operating system files in Windows 10.

Method 3

Use Registry to unhide hidden files in window 10

Step 1: Select “Window key + R” to open the “Run” dialog box.

Step 2: Type “regedit“, then press “Enter“.

Step 3: Now, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Explorer>Advanced

Step 4: Now, set the value of “Hidden” to ‘1’ which starts showing hidden files, folders, and drives. If you want to hide these files, folders, and drives set the value of “Hidden” to ‘2’.

Step 5: Want to see protected hidden operating system files? Set the value of “ShowSuperHidden” to ‘1’ and to hide them set its value to ‘2’.

Method 4

Show hidden files in window 10 using command prompt (cmd)

Step 1: Press “Window key+r” to open the run box, type “cmd” and open the command prompt.

Step 2: Now in command prompt type, “attrib -h -r -s /s /d E:\*.*” and press ‘Enter‘ button. It un-hide all files, folders in this drive, E is the drive name so you can change it to your drive.

Understand the above command in brief:

-h : It clears the hidden files attributes to how hidden files.

-r : It clears the Read-only files to attribute to allow you to modify the files after they show.

-s : It clear system file attribute.

/s : It is used to apply attrib and any command-line options to matching files in the current directory and all of its subdirectories.

/d : It applies attrib and any command-line option to directories.

Method 5

Use command prompt to access specific hidden files

Step 1: Open command prompt.

Step 2: Now, navigate to specific hidden files. e.g: if your specific hidden files path is “C:\users\admin\desktop\TechDevilZone\TechDevilZone.txt” then navigate to “C:\users\admin\desktop\“.

Step 3: Now, attrib: h TechDevilZone. This open every hidden files in TechDevilZone folder.

Note: TechDevilZone is folder name and TechDevilZone.txt is a hidden file.

Method 5 is Done as well.

Conclusion

These are the best ways to access the hidden files and folders in Windows 10. I hope in this article you learn from basics to the advanced level of hiding any files in Windows 10 and view all hidden files and folders of Windows 10. If you have any queries, let us know in the comment section.

FAQs on Show hidden files in Windows 10

I hope this article helped you!

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