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Lesson 06 of 12 · published

Hidden Files and Dotfiles

~10 min · dotfiles, hidden, config

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The dot is the only thing that hides them

Unix "hidden" files aren't really hidden. They are just files whose name starts with . — and the convention is that ls, GUI file managers, and most tools skip them by default. Type ls -A and there they are.

What lives in your home as dotfiles

  • ~/.zshrc, ~/.zprofile — zsh config
  • ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile — bash config
  • ~/.gitconfig — global git config
  • ~/.ssh/ — SSH keys and config (often chmod 700)
  • ~/.config/ — XDG-style config trees (Starship, fish, nvim, etc.)
  • ~/.local/share/ — XDG data
  • ~/.cache/ — XDG cache (safe to delete)

Why hide config?

Hiding keeps your home directory clean. Imagine running ls in ~ and seeing every tool's settings — fifty entries, most never touched again. Hidden by default keeps the visible space for what you actually work on.

Versioning your dotfiles

Most developers track ~/.zshrc, ~/.gitconfig, etc. in a git repo. Tools like chezmoi or GNU Stow (covered later) handle the symlinking. The first time you set up a fresh Mac, you can git clone + chezmoi apply and your shell feels exactly like home in five minutes.

Code

Find every dotfile in home·bash
ls -A ~ | head -30
# Just the directories
ls -dA ~/.* 2>/dev/null | head -20
# Their total size
du -sh ~/.* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail

External links

Exercise

Run ls -A ~ | wc -l and notice how many hidden files you have. Run du -sh ~/.* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail and find the biggest dotdir — for most macs that's ~/.cache, ~/.docker, or ~/.cursor.

Progress

Progress is local-only — sign in to sync across devices.
← PreviousHome, Current, Parent — ~ . ..Next →mkdir, rmdir, rm — Creating and Removing
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