A step by step tutorial on how to hide your files in a few easy steps. The applications are these: Having a folder “hidden” but when they turn on show hidden files? not there. For even more security check the box “Hidden” to hide this already hidden folder. Feel free to place anywhere on your desktop.
Well you have a folder that you want hidden but it’s too much trouble to go into the file settings each and every time and showing hidden files and folders. You don’t have time for that and you just want something simple!
Well here’s the solution. Create a new folder and hold alt+0160 while renaming the folder. This will cause the name to disappear!
Unfortunately now you have a picture of a folder with no name so it makes it pretty out in the open. Anyone can access it so it makes no sense to hide the name. I have a solution for this to.
Here is what you do.
Right click on the folder and then click on properties:
Then you click on the tab that says Customize:
After that you’ll need to click on the button that says Change Icon:
Finally you’ll need to choose a picture that best fits: they are all invisible but they do different things. Try logging in and out to see if you can still see the folder. I find that having the background black keeps things invisible on startup so you don’t have the chance of someone seeing the folder. Changing the background after login does not show the folder:
Now after this is all said and done you can apply the changes and this is what you will have: 
*NOTE* The folder can only be seen if selected. The box does not show if not selected.
For those of you that need a keyboard layout of where your keys are here is a picture I put in paint of a keyboard. The red circles are the keys. While holding alt the entire time press 1060 and then let go of alt. Then press enter. *NOTE* The two circles represent the amount of times you hit that key. My apologies for not putting in this tutorial on how to use the keyboard and for making my previous tutorial vague.
Here’s how to delete the “Hidden” Folder
My “Hidden” Folder is on my desktop so what I want to do is set the command to be this:
ren “C:UsersAdministratorDesktop(Alt+0160)” “Folder”
Press enter
Make sure that you type ALT+0160 as Holding the alt key down and then typing those numbers. No parenthesis.
76 Responses
how do I delete the folder???
You suggest this as a way to avoid having the extra clicking of going into properties and clicking hidden (4 clicks total)
Instead you suggest typing an extra 4 keys while typing the name, followed by another 7 clicks to change the icon… during which you go PAST the hidden attribute.
Then when you want to view the file again, instead of another 5 clicks, you have to click every possible location on your desktop to find the invisible icon.
How the hell is this making anything easier? Fail.
@ Jon
His purpose in writing this must be to have it hidden out in the open, yet not “hidden.” Only he will know where it is. By the way, you don’t have to click on every possible space on the desktop…you just click and drag the mouse into one giant rectangle and it will come up. Win.
How do you hold down alt+0160? Didn’t work for me.
Photoshopped.
cool ;D!
interesting alternative way of hiding folders…. just imagine someone going on “showing hidden files and folders” and still not seeing this one… although the introduction is slightly misleading. good one.
he means hold down alt and press 0160 on your numpad.
also @Jon: hidden folders are either visible or can’t be clicked, so this is actually pretty nice. i’ve been using it to hide my folders aswell for quite some time now. maybe thik about your posts before you hit the submit button next time..
Um I have run into a sort of snag with this. I can’t seem to delete the folder because a virus set it so i don’t have the privileges to delete it! I’ll begin working on a fix for this but to make it go faster does anyone have ideas? Notice in the properties of one of the pics that the read only is blacked out. I tried to change this but it won’t change. Help?
@ Dani – Ya……that’s what I did but it didn’t hide the folder name. I tried keeping alt pressed while I press enter as well as releasing it before I press enter (but after the 0160 bit). Basically, it didn’t work for me, at all.
I think you need to look at today’s date.
I’ve known about this trick for quite some time. The only thing is i have yet to find a way to delete or rename it. You also cannot move it into another folder. The trick is nice but don’t make the mistake of making a lof=t of them.
For the people for who it doesn’t work, I understand it mays seem evident for some, but you need to press the number with the Numeric Pad.
Hiding folders and using a unicode character that isn’t recognized by windows is NOT the same thing.
A hidden folder possesses the Hidden attribute, and therefore, can be set to not be searchable.
Any idiot can open a command prompt and see the folder’s there, and this will only work for one folder per directory, since you’re just changing the dir name.
This is the worst Windows tip ever…
And like Jon said, you shouldn’t have been claiming to simplify the process when you made it many times harder to accomplish (using a method that doesn’t even do REMOTELY the same thing).
i know where i’m putting my porn
Where is the alt+0160 Key????
You could even go as far as to setting the file attributes to hidden and system. start >> run >> cmd >>
attrib c:\ -h
attrib c:\ -s
Assuming c:\ is the path, and you enter “alt 0160″ for the folder name.
Now as long as you have windows set to not show system files, you won’t ever see it. You will have to access it from explorer with the actual path.
Where is the alt+0160 Key????
if you want to delete it just select compress to archive with winrar and check the box delete files after compressing. Also, name the archive something other than alt 0160. Then, winrar removes the folder and you remove the archive.
Nice idea. I prefer alt+255 it was just a space back in dos, and still works. i agree, this isnt ment for security, or hiding sensitive data, but more for hiding something on your parents or annoying sibling. Nothing too advanced, but nothing too difficult to get at too.
The alt key is by your space bar. Hold it down and while you are holding it down press 0160 and then let go and press enter. This will set the name to be invisible.
if you want to get rid of the folder with no name just open up a command prompt, cd to your desktop, and type ren “ALT+255″ “New Folder” and your folder will be renamed and you can delete it.
Edit: Don’t type the backslashes and don’t type out ALT+255 push the ALT key and 255 at the same time.
I have submitted a fix for this that adds a new tutorial on what buttons to press including a picture. I have also made the name and intro less misleading. You are right this is not meant for security but it is rather convenient if you do not want that folder to show up on your computer. I mean really, who’s going to go looking for something like that? They’ll look for something out in the open right? You can set decoys if you want.
Make sure you visit my other articles. There is one to hack your computer. I’m not allowed to say hack in it though even though that is what you’re doing. The program has many applications but should not be used to get into anyone else’s computer but your own. The article’s name is “Enable Administrater Account in Vista and Xp”.
neat trick. used to use a similar method on win98 with alt+255. Why are people having trouble deleting that folder? Select and delete, no problem.
Use linux and do it properly!
nice info, but how do you delete the folder. I tried with Winrar, but there was no option of deleting the compressed file.
Somebody, please help me delete this thing
alright so i used winrar to delete this folder and it worked. I’ll create another tutorial on how to delete it so there aren’t any questions. If you cannot download and you need an already installed version of winrar I will create an email address so I can send it to you. You have a 40 day limit on the program.
Thanks for the quick respond. I installed winrar and then had hard time uninstalling it. However, I am not that great w/ the command prompt and I couldn’t figure out how to write out the command I need to rename the folder. lol.
if you could help me with that, thereafter I should be able to delete it the usual way, right
Thx again
Useful post for some people. Too bad you received a dozen or so idiotic comments. If it’s not useful to you, move on. It will be useful to some people.
good tip kalright, i didnt want that folder to be on my desktop forever.
For those wannabe’s who think they are clever and say “change the attributes to hidden” etc… Get a friggin life. I turn off all the windows default crap and show hidden items. This is a great tip for people who want less of a chance for someone to find something. Anyone who will go into a command prompt has the frame of mind to search for hidden folders. GREAT TIP BTW…
When you put this on your desktop, there’s no need to do anything else. To open the folder, simply shade the area you think it’s in and it will shade a hint of the folder so you can open it. To delete the folder, right click and delete. You can also create one of these using alt9999 but usually with this one you will get a dot where the folder is. For some that’s hidden enough and they don’t have to shade search to find it.
Response to banhmr9001 who said: “Hiding folders and using a unicode character that isn’t recognized by windows is NOT the same thing.
A hidden folder possesses the Hidden attribute, and therefore, can be set to not be searchable.”
Think of “hidden” in the generic sense, though. Hidden means “not easily found” – it has also been used by Microsoft to define a file that is not viewable to users who have not set a certain attribute to ON, cannot be searched, etc. But this post is about the generic sense of “hidden” not the Microsoft sense.
will it work if you don’t have the numpad and only have the numbers lined at the top?
A useful article…I think…Personally I’m not really bothered about keeping my files a secret…
Try Win+E. If put one on my desktop, your hidden folder shows up under the recycle bin in explorer folder view.
I tried this tip and weird thing happened to me. Now, everytime I create a new folder, there’s a “folder” suffix after the default folder name. I’m using french version of Windows so it looks like this “Nouveau dossierfolder” instead of “Nouveau dossier” normally.
Does anyone else have this happened?
http://www.truecrypt.org/
T r u e C r y p t
Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux
Works very well
hi, how do you delete it?
@nikesh
Go to my tutorial “How to Delete a Hidden Folder” Make sure you have the privilages to download and install the program.
A new tutorial is under construction by BEETLEO OR BEETLEGOSSIP ON TRIOND.com.
@ beetleo
Thank you so much. It’s very unique and useful.
lol thats coolios
I have input a fix for this tutorial. You will now see how to delete the folder on this article at the bottom.
Naww.. forget all those silly steps.. Download this cool gadget instead. http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/
http://livesimpleandthoughtful.blogspot.com/
It’s a cute trick…until someone looks at that folder in Explorer and it shows up easily.
For noobs who can’t do it and says it is photoshoped, F**k you and use your numlock on a bloody laptop -.-
Anyways nice one dude thanks for sharing
There are many programs out there that will either encrypt your data or hide it with better success than this stupid attempt.
Alt+F4 works best for me.
There may be better programs out there lame but this is one you don’t have to download, install, and then have you find it. At least with this one you can locate where you put it easily. If you want extra security try clicking the hidden option on the file to hide it even more. For me this works great because I don’t want the file to be seen if someone logged into my account.
It’s a very pretty idea!
isnt this why they invented separate user accounts???
Clever, thinking outside the box
Good to know, thanks
For those who think its aprils fool: its not. If you want to do it simple, enter a space as name. and you can just make your own invisible icon in photoshop, not that hard.
thanks for the tip anyway!
Edit: space only works with the recycle bin, sorry..
but it still works with left alt + 0160
this cool
Hi,
Nice Idea. I was digging up information but failed to retireve any except the one that asked me to create a zip file with password. But that was not an acceptable solution. This one will help a lot. The only problem is that we wont be able to open/save the file directly from the open dialog box.
But still, the idea is great.
Thanks
Interesting idea. Now what should I put into my invisible folder? That is the question.
Sweet, now to get something to hide!
Great article.
Man! You beat me too it. Very informative through. The picture are going to be very helpful for some people.
That sounds pretty cool! I’m gnna try it out!
Alright the views are starting to stagnate. only 200 views today instead of the normal 5k Is there a way i can bring these back up? I am now at 45k views.
i will try this sometime. im not a techie so it would take time before it woould sink in. i will probably write you if i have some problem about it. i hope its alright.
of course it’s alright. I’d actually prefer feedback sometimes. The comments are perfect for that.
I had to use ctrl+0160, alt did nothing.
@tester
Mate, you should hold your ALT button when pressing numpad-number sequences.
Hold Alt, then press : numpad 0, 1, 6, 0
then release the alt button…
If you use notebook where there is “no” numpad, you must use your [fn] key (hold it together when you hold [alt] key), then type mjom
(it’s actually 0160)
Not really an impressive tip, to find anything that “invisible” on the desktop I would just press win+D (to get the desktop) and ctrl+A, marking all icons and folders on the desktop, and there it is.
To really protect and hide anything I would probably just use TrueCrypt, and use a random password that isn’t easily cracked. With TrueCrypt you can create a file that you can mount with TrueCrypt and use that file as a new volume, encrypting all data you put in it, on-the-fly. =)
GREAT TIP. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Whatever maybe, Its is such an easy tip. But most of us nev’ thought of such an idea. That’s the point in it.
=============== **** ALT PROBLEMS **** ============
You should hold your ALT button when pressing numpad-number sequences.
Hold Alt, then press : numpad 0, 1, 6, 0
then release the alt button…
-Just as Dodol said.
YOU WONT SEE ANYTHTING!!
JUST PRESS ENTER & U GET A FOLDER WITH A BLANK NAME.
Note: you can try all sorts of ALT combinations:
like, ALT+3 gives you a heart like this –> ♥
Enjoy!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
==================☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○◙================================
You still can select that folder using arrow keys on desktop.
And you are able to see that file with file manager (c:usersusernamedesktop)
Amazing! I can definitely use this.