Comments on: OS X: Easily edit hidden configuration files with TextEdit

By: Gogo Xa

Gogo Xa — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:39:00 +0000

It’s helpful. XD

By: Andrius Putna

Andrius Putna — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Does anyone know how to solve this?

By: mkram0

mkram0 — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:55:00 +0000

To edit your hosts file: (i haven’t tried it, but should work)

cd /private/etc/
ls -a -l

(it will list all files including its permissions)

chmod 777 hosts
(if it does not work, try sudo chmod 777 hosts)
open -a TextEdit hosts

(edit the file, save)

(now revert back to the permissions that were listed above when you did ls -a -l)
so chmod PERMISSION hosts
if the permission is like -rw-r–r– then use quotes chmod “-rw-r–r–” hosts.

Thanks

By: Haris

Haris — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:26:00 +0000

Editing your hosts file…

1. open up finder.
2. go/go to folder & write /etc
3. copy a hosts file to your desktop
4. copy it again for backup purposes
5. open the hosts file and edit it in TextEdit and save the file
6. drag and drop file into /etc directory and replace the old one
7. just keep your backup hosts file in case something goes wrong so that you can revert to default settings

I hope this helps :)

By: Pedja

Pedja — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Hi Ari, did you solve this? I have the same problem. TextEdit wont let me save cause it says that I don´t have auctorisation to save. How to do?

By: OT

OT — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:29:00 +0000

Hi Guys,

Can someone help me out? I added the JAVA_HOME, DERBY_HOME and other variables for my needs, changed and saved the .profile on my OSX 10.6.

In the current terminal session everything works OK. I can verify the variables by echo $JAVA_HOME etc. and work with the stuff.

But when I close the terminal or open new terminal window I have to manually reload the profile with . ./.profile command to make it work.

How do I reload the profile automatically for each session?

Thanx

By: ari salomon

ari salomon — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:52:00 +0000

when i tried

sudo open -a TextEdit /private/etc/hosts
it still would not let me save
“the document “hosts” could not be saved”

By: Tatankisima

Tatankisima — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:26:00 +0000

Use sudo (sudo open -a TextEdit /private/etc/hosts )

By: Ari Salomon

Ari Salomon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:49:00 +0000

great article. i used this to edit my hosts file:
open /private/etc/hosts

except it won’t let me save. i expected textedit to ask me for my password on saving but it simply says I’m not authorized and won’t let me save.

By: Aron Grinshtein

Aron Grinshtein — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:43:00 +0000

Thanks I was trying to set up RoR using Dan Benjamins install and you helped me figure out how to find the .profile file. Thanks.