How do you recursively remove the hidden attribute on files in Windows? If you are coming from a Linux background, you may be surprised to find out that you can do this from the crusty old Windows command line. Usually such power is reserved for, ahem, real shells and command-line tools which, until PowerShell came along, were sorely lacking on Windows. I mean, the Linux command line is so powerful, it must be possessed by a daemon or something.
In any case, there are a few good reasons (and probably some not-so good reasons) why you might need to recursively add or remove the hidden attribute on a bunch of files. If you ever find yourself in need of this, never fear! attrib is here!
First, open up a command prompt. Then “cd” into the directory where you want to start applying the attribute changes. Finally, enter the following command:
attrib -H /S
That will remove the hidden attribute from all files in the current directory, then it will recurse down to do the same thing in all the subdirectories. If you also want to remove the system attribute (which you cannot do in the file properties dialog), type this:
attrib -H -S /S
Easy! No extra app required. You can also add attributes and modify directories as well as files (I know, this much fun should be outlawed.) To get a list of options, enter:
attrib /?
