This tutorial post will teach you the method to hide files and directories in Linux based operating system. Let me share you the quick information about the Linux file system.
In Unix-like systems, File or directory having name with a (.) in front will get hidden by default.
For example: The folder name-> .omgfoss will get hidden by default.
How To Hide Files And Directories In Linux
How To Hide Files In Linux
As we told that the file name with dot in front will get hidden by default. In-order to hide a file in Linux, rename it with a period (.) at the start of its name. Let’s take an example of the file name omgfoss.txt
We are using mv command to rename the file.
mv foo.txt .foo.txt
You can verify it by running the following command:ls
ls -al
How To Hide Folders Or Directories In Linux
You need to rename the folders name with the help of mv command. Let’s take an example of folder linux-tutorial.
mv -v linux-tutorial .linux-tutorial
mv -v dir1 .dir1
mv -v dir2 .newdir2
Meanwhile, It’s pretty simple to unhide the files or folders in Linux.
You can remove the period (.) from the file name so that it will be visible.
To unhide the folder:
mv -v .linux-tutorial linux-tutorial
To unhide the file:
mv -v .omgfoss.txt omgfoss.txt
How to hide and password protect my files
To encrypt a single file, use the gpg command:
gpg -c omgfoss.txt
Now hide it:
mv -v omgfoss.txt.gpg .omgfoss.txt.gpg
Now, You need to remove the original file.
rm omgfoss.txt
ls -la
