Hide Files on GitHub for Firefox

Hide Files on GitHub is a Firefox extension with a very explicit name. Basically, this small-packed tool (around 50 KB) will help you focus your attention on what is important. For those who constantly have a lot of materials to review and often navigate and use GitHub, it is truly a burden to have to sort through tens of files.

Installing the add-on is a matter of seconds and it creates a small icon in your toolbar. The tool setup can be accessed from Add-ons (Ctrl + Shift + A) > Hide files on GitHub. Here, you can set its basic functioning, options, and permission. In the ‘Options’ tab, there are two available styles.

These functions act in two different modes. By selecting one of those with a click, you choose to navigate on GitHub, with the extension on, using the predefined regular expressions or not; the first mode hides on GitHub everything that is listed and defined as ReGex in the hidden files section (in the tool’s settings), and the second, ‘Show nonessentials’ will generate a button (on GitHub) you can click and see the hidden elements.

In the tool setup, there’s a section called ‘Hidden Files.’ Upon installation, you have a set of rules (standard regular expressions) that hide certain files when navigating Git repositories, such as readme files, license information documents, version files, patents, etc. Using new custom RegEx expressions, you can insert here any kind of rule for hiding any type of element.

If you are in doubt about using this tool or do not master regular expression creation, do not worry. The tool comes installed with a lot of predefined rules. Moreover, adding a new simple name in the tool’s field will hide the corresponding files automatically for you, at navigation time (e.g. ^Cargo.lock). By deleting a regular expression, you make other hidden files reappear.

Hide Files on GitHub is a minimal Firefox extension; it is worth installing, especially if you spend a lot of time navigating GitHub. Its purpose is to hide nonessential files and documents often listed in GitHub repositories so you can navigate the file browser with ease and ignore unimportant files.