• Using Finder On Mac
• Access System Library Mac
• Access Library Folder Mac

Problem to be Solved

To unhide your Library folder in macOS Sierra, launch Finder and navigate to your user Home folder (you can jump directly to your user folder by select  Go Home from the Finder’s menu bar. The Finder Sidebar, which is the pane on the left side of every Finder window, provides quick access to common locations, but it's capable of much more. The sidebar offers shortcuts to areas of your Mac that you likely use the most.

Open your home folder (/Users/yourusername) in the Finder. Depending on your Finder settings, this may be as easy as simply opening a new Finder window. Otherwise, choose Home from the Finder’s Go menu (Go Home); or press Shift-Command-H. Still in the Finder, choose View. The easiest way to find your hidden /Library/ folder is to do the following: Open Finder. Hold down Alt (Option) and choose Go from the dropdown menu bar at the top of the screen. You will see the /Library folder listed below the Home folder. In Finder, open Finder - Preferences.On the sidebar 'tab' tick the box for the little house; this corresponds to /Users/username. /Library/ may be hidden, if you're on Mountain Lion.If so, hold down the Alt / Option key while clicking on the Go menu, and it will appear so you can then click on it. The rest should follow. Dec 20, 2018  For temporary access to your user library Go to Finder Go and press either the Option key or the Shift key and select library. For that reason, Apple decided to hide your user’s Library folder by default in Mac OS X 10.7 and all later Mac OSX and macOS releases.

You’ve got a great backup of your OSX computer, and you need to get something back from the Library folder, say something in the Application Support subfolder. These instructions will show you how to do unhide the User Library folder on the external drive or even on a second Mac.

Credit goes to Steve Davidson for teaching me how to do this.

Let’s Start with a Remote Mac Because the Syntax is Simpler

On the remote Mac, enable Remote Login (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/how-to-set-up-a-mac-for-remote-login/) and use the ssh command to Secure Shell into the remote Mac. In this example, our local machien name is Podfeet-rMBP, and our remote Mac’s name is Core-i7-4.local.

I have the same user account on both but I used the allison@ the beginning to show you how to enter your user name if it’s different on the other Mac.

Note that the Library Folder is Not Visible

Here’s a screenshot of the remote Mac Core i7, and the Library folder is invisible.

Next Let’s Repeat This On An External Volume

My backup drive has a nice long annoying name “Core i7 backup 2011 03 03”. As you can see I have a backup of my home (allison) directory but I can’t see the Library folder.

Repeat the chflags Command

Using Finder On Mac

In this case we have the same command but we have to navigate first to Volumes, then to the specific backup drive name (with those annoying spaces replaced with and space) and then to the user directory and then Library.

Library folder not visible in mac. To be honest it might be easier to change the name of the volume not to have spaces than it is to type it this way!

Access System Library Mac

Or you could use quotes like this:

Now Your Library is Visible on Your Backup Volume

Access Library Folder Mac

Important note – you only have to do this one time, every time you connect your external drive the Library will be visible.