How to Get Your Library Folder Back in Mac OS X Lion

Now that Apple has released Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, you may have noticed that some of your folders are missing. Above all, the Library folder in your user account seems to have vanished. This folder holds nearly all the data that applications save without asking you, from your mail messages to calendars, preferences to virtual disks. It’s a pretty important folder. So how can you see this folder and start using it again? Well, there are a couple of ways.

First, if you simply want to access the folder on an occasional basis, it’s easy:

1. From the Finder, hold down the Option key on your keyboard and click the Go menu. You should see that the menu has a “Library” option.
2. Click the “Library” option, and a new Finder window will appear with your Library folder.

The problem with the above approach is that you need to go to the Go menu every single time you want to see your Library folder, and that’s not practical. Worse, if you need to access the Library folder from within an application, you can’t, since it still appears invisible from within the Finder. Luckily, there is a way you can make the folder visible. Unluckily, you need to use the Terminal.

To make your Library folder permanently visible, follow these steps:

1. Launch Terminal from the /Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Type this single line and press return to make the Finder visible again. This assumes you are logged into the account in which you want the Library to become visible:

chflags nohidden ~/Library

Now you should be able to see the Library folder from within your user folder. I would highly suggest you drag the folder to the Favorites section of the Finder Sidebar so that you can quickly access the folder. Even if it becomes invisible in the future (say, through a Mac OS X system update), you’ll still be able to access it from the Sidebar.

P.S. Based on my observations, if you are upgrading from Snow Leopard, and you had placed the Library folder in your Sidebar, the Library will remain there even after the upgrade. For you lucky people, this tip may be unnecessary.

Did this tip work for you? Have you found an even easier way to access the user Library? Let others know in the comments.