But, there is still so much more that OS X is capable of and it is not always possible to harness all that power from the Graphical interface, and that is where our application of the day, Secrets, comes in handy.

Secrets installs in the System Preferences Pane and provides you access to hundreds of hidden OS X settings. Almost all of these settings can be accessed from the command line also and if you’re a regular follower of the Mac OS tips website, Mac OSX Hints, you might have come across some of them earlier. But, with the hundreds of hidden settings that Secrets unlocks, you’re bound to find some that you’ve never come across and will find useful.

To install Secrets, just download the zip file, extract it and double click the Secrets.prefPane file that is a part of the zip archive.

Now, you can just click on the icon in System Preferences and OS X will launch Secrets.

Secrets divides all the settings into various categories that are displayed in a vertical sidebar on the left side of the window. This classification makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. For example, if you want to change the dock style from the default 3D type to the older 2D style dock, just click on Dock in the left sidebar and select the 2D style from the drop down menu under Dock Appearance.

If you follow the popular OS X blogs, you’d recall that this particular setting was widely published for users who wanted to go back to the older Dock style when Apple decided to change the default Dock appearance to the 3D style in OS X 10.5. I, on the other hand, actually like the 3D look more so that’s what I keep.

How about something more useful?

One of the features of OS X that I use most often is Quick Look. This feature lets you quickly preview a document right from the Finder without even opening the document. The feature works even if you don’t have the required application installed, and Apple has been nice enough to bundle plugins for the most common type of documents along with OS X.

I use Quick Look all the time to read Word and Power point documents even though I don’t even have Microsoft Office installed on my system.

By default, if I use Quick Look on a folder all it tells me is the size of the folder and the number of files in it.

The two Finder settings that I like to enable using Secrets is to let Finder display hidden files and enable the Quick Look X-ray folders which enables Quick Look to display thumbnails of all the items inside the folder.

Changing the above settings require you to restart Finder. You can do so by clicking the Quit This button at the bottom of the window.

Now, whenever you use Quick Look to view a folder, you’ll see thumbnail images of all the documents inside the folder. Isn’t that cool ?

Go ahead and use Secrets to customize OS X as you see fit. Let us know which are your favorite Secrets.

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Here is a refresher again on how to hide a file or a folder. For this example I created a folder called secrets in my test folder. I can hide this folder by simply doing a right-click, choosing Properties from the menu and selecting Hidden under the Attributes section. This will hide the folder from all the users.

Whatever the reason might be, if you have hidden files or folders, it is not hard at all to display them again. Here’s how to do it:

Display Hidden Files in Windows Vista or Windows 7:

Right now, the folder secret that I created still exists but is not visible to the users. Here’s how to make it visible.

Once inside your main folder (where the hidden files/folders exist), click on the Organize -> Folder and Search Options from the menu.

Click on the View tab. These settings control what gets displayed to the users. Towards the middle of the menu, there is an option to control hidden files and folders. By default, it is set to “Do not show hidden files and folders“. Change it to “Show hidden files and folders“.

Click Apply and then Ok. Windows will now display all the hidden files and folders contained in this folder. The exact same instructions apply for Windows 7.

Also note that these settings are global and would apply to all the folders in your hard drive.

How To Display Hidden Folders in Windows XP:

For windows XP, simply go to My Computer -> Tools Menu.

Selecting Folders Options will take to the same folder settings tab that we saw for Vista. Now under the Hidden files and folders option, choose “Show hidden files and folders“. Click Apply and then Ok.

Windows XP would now display all hidden files and folders.

Protected Operating System Files:

It is important to mention that following the above instructions would display most of the hidden files and folders but would still not display sensitive some protected operating system files. These files are hidden because of the risk they pose if anything is altered in them. However, if you want to display these files as well, uncheck the box titled Hide Protected Operating System Files (Recommended). This will display the operating system files within your PC.

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