How to view the ~/Library folder in Mavericks

Mavericks Library folder

Inside your home folder is a Library folder—commonly written in Unix syntax as ~/Library, which means “a folder named Library at the root level of your home folder.” This folder is accessible only to you, and it’s used to store your personal settings, application-support files, and, in some cases, data.

The files and folders in ~/Library are generally meant to be left alone, but if you’ve been using OS X for a while, chances are you’ve delved inside. Perhaps you wanted to tweak something using a tip from Macworld, Mac OS X Hints, or elsewhere on the Web. Or maybe a developer asked you to delete a preference file, or grab a log file, while troubleshooting a program. Whatever the case may have been, up until Lion (OS X 10.7), you simply opened your Home folder to access the Library folder.

But after upgrading to Lion, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, or OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first time you tried accessing your personal Library folder, you likely found…well, you didn’t find. The folder was gone.

The disappearing Library folder

At least, that’s how it appears. But rest assured, regardless of your version of OS X, your personal Library folder is right where it’s always been, at the root level of your Home folder. It’s just that, starting in Lion, and continuing in Mountain Lion and Mavericks, Apple has made the folder invisible.

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