I'm using Windows 11, and I accidentally hid all of my files while trying to hide just three specific ones. When I was prompted to hide all files, I thought it was only referring to those three highlighted ones. Instead, it ended up hiding over 100,000 files on my computer! Now I'm dealing with issues like program errors and OneDrive not being able to find files.
I know how to view hidden files and I don't want to see them; I just want my icons to look normal again and for my Steam games to work properly. I've already tried restoring settings to default under File Explorer options, but that didn't help. I need to know how to revert all files back to their default visibility, where only the files that should be hidden are hidden. Can anyone help me with that?
1 Answer
Your best bet is to try doing a system restore to a point before you made the changes. When you were hiding those three files, it’s possible you had an option selected that affected more files than intended. Unfortunately, there’s no undo command for this, so a restore might be your best option.
I had to do a full system reset after that. I got most files unhidden, but even with the correct paths, it said "unable to find [file path]" when clicking them. System restore didn’t completely help; I’ll definitely be careful next time!
I just tried that! It worked for some files, but not all of them, which is strange. I’m confused about how hiding just three Steam files led to so many others being hidden.