How To Hide File & Folders in Windows XP - 3 Best Ways To Hide Folders

There are 3 ways to hide folder and files in windows XP, we will discuss about 3 alternate ways to hide folders in your Windows XP. If you want to hide the folder, don't put that folder in some obvious place where every one can find it, just try to put it some odd place. For example, create a new folder under C:\Program Files or some where deep into directory tree. Some times you need to hide the folders because of some secret documents or pictures :). So in this article you will find alternate ways to hide the folders in windows operating system - All Methods will works in the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and rest of the Windows Operating System versions. The best thing is that none of the method is using any software, without any software you can hide and unhidden the folders.

1. Use of Hidden Attribute of Folder Properties

First method is hidden attribute property method, which i guess known to all of you already, but still let's see the steps how to hide the folders in windows using Hidden Attribute given in folder properties.

First of all we need to check that setting for the hidden files and folders are not to be shown. In order to do this, click on My Computer from your desktop and from the menu click on Tools and then Folder Options.


Click on the View tab and under the Hidden Files and Folders section, choose the radio button that says “Do not show hidden files and folders”.

Click OK to save the changes. Usually this option is already set by default to hide files and folders, but it’s good to check anyway just to make sure. Ok, now to hide the folder itself, go into the folder that has the folder you want to hide, right-click on it and choose Properties.


On the General tab, check the box in the Attributes section named Hidden.

Click on OK button and your folder should no longer be visible in the current window you have open. It’s hidden and you won’t be able to see it unless you do the same procedure as mentioned above and change the option back to Show Hidden Files and Folders.

2. Customize Folder Icon and Folder Name

Now this method is something new and you will not get this method anywhere else, because this is my own method to hide the files and folders :)

To hide the folder with this method you need to follow the steps given below.

1. Right click on folder which you want to hide and select Properties.

2. Select Customize Tab and click on change icon button given in folder icons Panel.


3. Now you will find the different icons but you need to select the white space as icon, click on OK and again click on Apply and OK button given on folder properties.

4. Now you need to rename the folder as "SPACE", this means your folder name must not have any name (See the image given below),

windows will not allow to kept any folder without any name, but to accomplish this task you need to right Click on Folder and select Rename option. Now Press the Right Alt key from Keyboard and while pressing this you need to type 255 from NumPad, now release the Alt key and press Enter. your folder has now space as the name and indirectly your folder is hidden now.

3. Hide Folders with Command Prompt

- This is the best way to hide the folder in windows, no one can show this folder. Folder which is hidden with command prompt will not be visible by anyone till they remove the attribute of that folder. Folder hided with this method will be hided no matter of your folder options properties. if you have selected the View Hidden Files and Folders from Folder Options, still you won't get the folder visible to you. :-)

Follow the steps given below to hide the folder with command prompt.

1. To Open the command prompt, go to Start Menu > Run and type cmd or command and press enter.

2. Now navigate to the folder or file which you want to hide from the others. (Example: I want to hide the Folder JOKES which is resides in my D: drive, so i will directly navigate to the D:\> Drive. If i want to hide the funny jokes folder which is inside the Jokes folder then my path should be D:\>JOKES - Means your pat should be to the level where your folder resides.)

3. Now we will use the attrib command, just type attrib +a +s +h FOLDERNAME and hit enter and your folder will be hide, to unhidden the hidden folder you need to type attrib -a -s -h FOLDERNAME and done.

So these are the 3 ways which i use to hide the folders in my windows machine. which one from the above you are using?, share your experience. if you have any difficulty then please comment below.

by---@j@y