Ubunutu - .ssh folder exists but I cannot see it? only through terminal [closed]

Question

When I go to my terminals and use $ cd ~/.ssh I am able to enter the directory, which proves it exists. However, when I use any other file browser, I cannot find the .ssh folder!

Why is this happening?? I desperately need to access the .ssh perhaps it is invisible? Can anyone help me

(Ubuntu 14.04)

Answer 1

Any files or directories which start with dot are hidden. They cannot be seen from file browser. Open you terminal and

ls -a

now you will see your .ssh directory listed. make sure you are using ls -a command in the right home directory. If you able to cd ~ssh from one user then use ls -a command in the that user's home directory.

If you really want to see the files in the file browser then create a directory without starting with a dot and copy all the contents from the .ssh directory to the new directory which you have created.

sudo mkdir /home/user_name/sshfolder
sudo cp /home/user_name/.ssh/* /home/user_name/sshfolder/

Now open you file system browser and verify the contents. I hope this is helpful.

Answer 2

By convention, files starting with . are hidden. You can see them on the command line with ls -a or ls -A, or in your file manager by finding the setting that allows you to see "hidden" files (ctrl + h).