No matter what kind of content you keep on your computer, you’ll always find reasons to hide certain files and folders. Sometimes you need to hide some of your files on your Windows and keep them away from prying eyes. So you need to use this guide to hide them by using File Explorer or Command Prompt.
Sometimes you have important documents and videos that you want to hide. Or you simply want to prevent users from accidentally deleting certain files if you’re sharing your PC with other people.
For any kind of reason, you can quickly hide a file or folder on Windows 10 in two different ways. You can do it by using File Explorer or using Command Prompt.
How to Hide Files on Windows 10?
Here we are going to provide the steps you need to learn in order to hide your files on Windows 10. Moreover, we will talk about ways for accessing those hidden items. So take the steps below.
1. Hide Files on Windows 10 by using File Explorer
The easiest way to keep content hidden is using File Explorer.
- Open File Explorer.
- Navigate to the file or folder you want to hide.
- Right-click the item and click on Properties.
- On the General tab, under Attributes, check the Hidden option.
- Select Apply.
- If you’re hiding a folder with files and subfolders, make sure to select the “Apply changes to this folder, subfolders, and files” option.
- Tap on OK.
- Click OK again to complete the task.
When you have completed the steps, the hidden items will not be visible anymore. This is because Windows 10 doesn’t show hidden files by default.
If you want to access your hidden items, you can open File Explorer, click on the View tab and make sure to check the Hidden items option. Then you can browse your hidden items as you would normally do with other content.
At any time, you can make the files and folders visible again by using the same steps mentioned above. But this time on step 4 make sure to clear the Hidden option.
2. Hide Files on Windows 10 by using Command Prompt
Actually, you can also use Command Prompt to hide files and folders on your Windows 10. Here’s how:
- Open Start.
- Do a search for Command Prompt and click the result.
- Type the following command to navigate to the items you want to hide and press Enter:
cd C:\Users\admin\Desktop\Files. In the command replace the path after cd with the path to your file or folder. - Type the following command to hide a folder or file and press Enter:
attrib +h "Secret Files". In the command replace “Secret Files” with the name of your folder or file. Quotation marks are only necessary when there are spaces in the name.
If you’re trying to hide a folder with files and subfolders, which you also want to keep hidden, then you’ll need to use these steps as well.
- While in Command Prompt type the following command to navigate inside the hidden folder and press Enter:
cd "Secret Files". In the command replace “Secret Files” with the name of your hidden folder. - Type the following command to hide all files and folders inside the hidden folder and press Enter:
attrib +h /s /d
After completing the steps, the items with the hidden attribute will no longer be visible.
How to Access Hidden Items and Make them Visible Again?
You may change your mind and want to make your hidden files visible again. In such cases you can use the following steps to remove the hidden attribute for files and folders.
- Open Start.
- Do a search for Command Prompt and click the result.
- Type the following command to navigate to the hidden items location and press Enter:
cd C:\Users\admin\Desktop\Files. In the command replace the path after cd with the path to your file or folder. - Type the following command to make the items visible again and press Enter:
attrib -h "Secret Files". In the command replace “Secret Files” with the name of your folder or file. Quotation marks are only necessary when there are spaces in the name.
In the case you also set the hidden attribute for files and subfolders inside of a folder, then do the following to remove the attribute.
- While in Command Prompt type the following command to navigate inside the hidden folder and press Enter:
cd "Secret Files". In the command replace “Secret Files” with the name of your hidden folder. - Type the following command to remove the hidden attribute from all files and folders inside the folder and press Enter:
attrib -h /s /d
We have earlier discussed how to hide your Android files in another article. If you like to learn it, you can read it. Now which of the mentioned methods do you prefer to hide files on Windows 10? Tell us in the comments below.
