By default, Microsoft Windows 10 hides certain files from view when you explore them on your hard drive. This protects important files from being deleted so that the system isn’t damaged. If you’re the geeky type, you’ll want to be able to view all files all the time. Follow these steps to show hidden files.
Option 1 – From File Explorer
- Select the “Start” button, then choose “File Explorer“.
- Make sure the menu bar is expanded. You can toggle the menu bar by selecting the ^ at the upper right portion of the window.
- Select the “View” tab.
- Check the “Hidden items” check box to view hidden items.
- If you need more file viewing options, select “Options” > “View“.
Option 2 – From Control Panel
- Right-click the “Start” button, then select “Control Panel“.
- Go to “Appearance and Personalization“, then select “File Explorer Options“.
- Click the “View” tab.
- Scroll down a bit and change the “Hidden files and folders” setting to “Show hidden files, folders, and drives“. Optionally, you may wish to uncheck the “Hide protected operating system files” box as well.
Option 3 – Via Registry
- Hold the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.
- Type “regedit“, then press “Enter“.
- Navigate to the following location:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Software
- Microsoft
- Windows
- CurrentVersion
- Explorer
- Advanced
- Set the value for “Hidden” to “1” to show hidden files, folders, and drives. Set the value to “2” to not show hidden files, folders, and drives.
- Set the value for “ShowSuperHidden” to “1” to show protected operating system files. Set the value to “2” to not show protected operating system files.
HMB says
Ok, I just checked this out… here’s an example where the attrib method (below) will show files when the author’s method will not. To illustrate, configure Explorer to show all files as outlined in this article. Then,
1) Open a 2nd Windows Explore and navigate to C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent Items
2) Shift select and delete these files (or move them to a temp location; I think advanced “Disk Cleanup” tool will delete as well).
Also, note that all the advanced “show file” setting made earlier are still intact.
Next open a command prompt in the …\Recent Items folder. To do this:
1) Open a 3rd explorer window and navigate *in the left panel* to C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows
2) With your mouse over the “Windows” folder *still in the left panel*, hold down Left-Shift + Right Mouse Click to get the advanced context menu, click on “Open command window here”
3) In the …\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows> command prompt, key in: “cd recent”
4) Key in …\recent\> attrib *.*
You should see a bunch of files not shown in explorer.
Charles Davis says
The current version of Win 10 looks and works differently, so this just confused me.
Gabriel says
I don`t have CurrentVersion in Windows from HKEY_CURRENT_USER, please help me!
J Evans says
No. Unable to change entry. Received notice “Cannot edit Hidden. Error writing the value’s new contents”.
dsf says
This saved me so much time! Thank you!
Caleb says
This saved me so much time! Thank you!