macOS gives you plenty of options for customisation and setting things up just the way you want them. However, if you love tinkering with your computers, chances are Mac’s built-in settings are not enough for you. Fortunately, there are a lot of hidden settings in macOS Big Sur that you can play around with. So, if you’re looking to completely customise your Mac experience, here is how to access hidden Mac settings easily.
There are a couple of ways you can access hidden settings on a Mac. You can obviously use the Terminal; something we will discuss in a later section. Or, you can go ahead and use apps that let you change these settings without having to use the Terminal at all.
1. Use Hidden Mac Settings with TinkerTool
First we will discuss the easy way change secret settings in Mac. For this, we will use an app called TinkerTool (download). This is a free app, so you don’t need to worry about paying to start editing your Mac’s settings.
Within each of these categories you’ll find category-specific settings that you can change. For example, in the Finder tab, you can show hidden files, show path in title, and even add a quit option to Finder.
If you’re like me, you probably went crazy and changed every single setting you could. While that’s fine, if you have changed a load of stuff that you actually don’t want changed, you can easily restore the settings with TinkerTool as well.
3. Use Terminal to Change Hidden Settings in macOS
While TinkerTool is a really easy way to alter hidden settings on your Mac, all of those settings can also be changed using Terminal commands. Obviously that requires you to know the commands to use, which can be a pain to find.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true
killall Finder
Note: By the way, you can use the command “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false” to hide hidden files as well.
Basically, all the settings that TinkerTool gives you access to can be used via the Terminal as well. All you need to do is search for the command required, and just run it in the Terminal app.
Q. How do I show hidden files in Terminal?
Q. How do I fix preferences error on Mac?
Q. How do I see hidden apps on Mac?
Using hidden settings on your Mac is a great way to get even more control over how your computer works. You can enable or disable hidden files, restrict the Finder, change Dock settings, and so much more. You can also make your Mac keep certain apps in light mode all the time even if you use dark mode system-wide.
