Find and view hidden files and directories on Linux

Understand the dot-prefix convention

On Linux and other Unix-like systems, any file or directory whose name starts with a dot (.) is treated as hidden. This is not a special file attribute, it is purely a naming convention respected by shells, file managers, and most command-line tools.

Hidden files are commonly used for user-specific configuration, cache data, and state that applications need but that users rarely edit directly. They are not a security mechanism. Anyone with read access to a directory can still see and open dotfiles once they know to look for them.

ls

Running plain ls in your home directory will typically show only a handful of regular files and folders, even though dozens of dotfiles usually exist there.

List hidden files with ls -a

The -a flag tells ls to show all entries, including those starting with a dot. This includes the special entries . (current directory) and .. (parent directory).

ls -a

To exclude the . and .. entries while still showing dotfiles, use -A instead.

ls -A

Get detailed output with ls -la

Combining -l (long format) with -a shows permissions, ownership, size, and modification time alongside hidden files. This is the combination most engineers use daily.

ls -la

Example output in a typical home directory:

drwx------ 15 alice alice 4096 Mar 10 09:12 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 root  root  4096 Jan  5 14:03 ..
-rw-------  1 alice alice  220 Jan  5 14:03 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 alice alice  220 Jan  5 14:03 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 alice alice 3771 Jan  5 14:03 .bashrc
drwx------  2 alice alice 4096 Feb 20 11:40 .ssh
drwxr-xr-x  8 alice alice 4096 Mar  1 16:22 .config

The first character of each permission string tells you whether the entry is a directory (d) or a regular file (-). Notice that .ssh has permissions drwx------, meaning only the owner can read, write, or enter it. That is intentional and should never be loosened.

Sort and filter hidden file listings

You can combine flags to make large directory listings easier to scan. Sorting by modification time helps you spot recently changed config files.

ls -lat

To list only hidden files and directories, excluding regular ones, pipe the output through grep.

ls -la | grep '^\.'

A cleaner way to list only top-level dotfiles using shell globbing is:

ls -ld .[!.]*

Find hidden files and folders with the find command

The find command searches recursively and is more precise than ls when you need to locate hidden files across an entire directory tree, not just one level.

find . -maxdepth 1 -name ".*"

To search recursively through all subdirectories for hidden files only (not hidden directories):

find /home/alice -type f -name ".*"

To find only hidden directories:

find /home/alice -type d -name ".*"

This is especially useful on a server where you are auditing a user's home directory or a deployment path for leftover configuration or credential files.

find /var/www/example.com -name ".*" -not -path "*/.git/*"

The example above excludes anything inside a .git directory, which is useful when a hidden-file search would otherwise be flooded with version control internals.

View hidden files in GUI file managers

Most desktop Linux file managers hide dotfiles by default, matching the command-line convention. The keyboard shortcut to toggle visibility is the same across GNOME Files (Nautilus), KDE Dolphin, and most others.

If you are connecting to a remote server over SFTP using a graphical client, the same toggle usually applies to the remote pane as well.

Show hidden files in terminal file managers: ranger

ranger is a terminal-based file manager with vim-style navigation. It hides dotfiles by default.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ranger

sudo dnf install -y ranger

Launch ranger and press zh to toggle hidden files on or off within the session.

ranger

To make hidden files visible by default, edit the ranger config file.

set show_hidden true

If the config file does not exist yet, generate the default configuration first.

ranger --copy-config=rc

Show hidden files in terminal file managers: Midnight Commander (mc)

Midnight Commander is a classic dual-pane terminal file manager, popular for quick server-side file operations over SSH.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y mc

sudo dnf install -y mc

Launch mc, then toggle hidden file visibility with the keyboard shortcut or the Options menu.

mc

Inside mc, press Alt+. (the dot key) to toggle dotfile visibility, or go to Options, Configuration, and check the Show hidden files box to make it permanent.

Understand common hidden files and directories

Once you can see hidden files, it helps to know what the most common ones actually do before you edit or delete anything.

If you are troubleshooting SSH key issues after noticing permission problems in .ssh, see fix SSH too many authentication failures error on Linux.

Check disk usage hidden in dotfiles and dot-directories

Hidden directories like .cache, .local, and .config can silently consume significant disk space over time, especially on development machines or build servers.

du -sh ~/.cache ~/.local ~/.config 2>/dev/null

For a broader view of disk usage across your filesystem, see check disk space usage on Linux with df and du commands.