How to hide and unhide a file in the Windows command line

There are two methods of hiding files in MS-DOS or the Windows command line without installing any additional software on the computer.

Hide using the attrib command

The first method uses the attrib command as seen below.

attrib +h c:\autoexec.bat

This command hides your autoexec.bat file so a standard user browsing your hard drive would not be able to see the file. To make the file unhidden, use -h instead of the +h so the line would look like the example below.

attrib -h c:\autoexec.bat

Although the file is hidden, someone could still type edit c:\autoexec.bat and edit the file, or if someone typed attrib it lists all files and their attributes.

• See our attrib command page for full information on this command and other examples.

Hide using Alt codes

The other method uses Alt codes when creating a directory or renaming it and prevents most using an early version of Windows and MS-DOS from accessing the directory. Below are the steps required for creating a directory with these characters.

1. Type md (hold down Alt and type 987 while continuing to hold Alt; once typed in let go of Alt and a solid block appears).
2. Press Enter to create the directory.

To get to this directory, type cd followed by a space, and hold Alt while typing 987 to get the block. When pressing Enter, you would then be able to get in the directory.

I can't remember what characters I typed. How do I delete the directory now?

See the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) dictionary definition that lists a complete listing of ASCII characters or use the "?" wildcard where the ASCII character is.