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How to Search Hidden Files and Ignored Directories with ripgrep

By Freedom251 Team · · 3 min read

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To search hidden files and directories as well as paths excluded by ignore rules, run rg --hidden --no-ignore 'pattern' .. The shorter equivalent is rg -uu 'pattern' .. Use -uuu only when you also want ripgrep to search binary files.

Choose the filters you want to override

Ripgrep normally skips hidden paths during recursive traversal and respects ignore rules. These options change those behaviors independently:

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What you want to search Command What it changes
Hidden paths, while honoring ignore rules rg --hidden 'TODO' . Includes hidden files and directories; ignore rules still apply.
Ignored paths, while still skipping hidden paths rg --no-ignore 'TODO' . Stops respecting ignore files; hidden paths are still skipped during recursive traversal.
Both hidden and ignored paths rg --hidden --no-ignore 'TODO' .
rg -uu 'TODO' .
Includes both classes while retaining default binary-file handling.
Hidden, ignored, and binary files rg -uuu 'TODO' . Also searches binary files, which may produce control characters in terminal output.

Here, . means search from the current directory, and TODO is the text pattern to find. Replace either with the path and pattern you need.

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Understand hidden files, ignore rules, and the -u shortcuts

Include hidden paths with --hidden

--hidden, also written -., includes hidden files and directories that recursive searching would otherwise skip. These are commonly names beginning with a dot, such as .env or .config/. On operating systems with a hidden-file attribute, ripgrep’s manual says that attribute may also mark a path as hidden. This option does not disable ignore rules.

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Include ignored paths with --no-ignore

--no-ignore disables filtering from ignore files such as .gitignore, .ignore, and .rgignore. It does not enable hidden-path searching, so combine it with --hidden if you need both.

Use -uu for hidden and ignored paths

Ripgrep’s documented progression is -u to disable .gitignore handling, -uu to also search hidden files and directories, and -uuu to also search binary files. For the common task of finding text in hidden and ignored paths without changing binary handling, -uu is a concise alternative to --hidden --no-ignore.

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Keep the search focused

Disabling ignore rules can include generated or otherwise irrelevant directories. You can narrow the search with command-line globs:

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rg 'TODO' --glob '!target/**' --glob '*.rs' .

In this example, the quoted patterns tell ripgrep to exclude paths under target/ and include Rust files. The leading ! excludes matching paths. If multiple command-line glob patterns match a path, the later matching pattern takes precedence. Quote wildcard patterns so the shell passes them to ripgrep instead of expanding them first.

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If you want to relax only some ignore sources, the manual also documents --no-ignore-vcs for source-control ignore rules and --no-ignore-dot for .ignore and .rgignore rules. Ignore-file precedence is documented as .rgignore over .ignore, and .ignore over Git ignore rules; Git’s repository-specific $GIT_DIR/info/exclude and configured global ignore file can also affect results. See the ripgrep guide and the Debian trixie rg(1) manual for the documented controls and precedence.

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Diagnose why a file is missing

  1. List paths ripgrep would search with rg --files. This shows file paths without searching their contents.

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  2. If the expected hidden path is missing, try rg --hidden 'pattern' ..

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  3. If an ignored path is missing, try rg --no-ignore 'pattern' .. To test both hidden and ignored filtering together, use rg -uu 'pattern' ..

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  4. Consider binary filtering only if the file may be binary. Ripgrep skips binary content by default and the guide says it identifies binary files by the presence of a NUL byte. Use -uuu or --text only when searching binary content is intended; binary output may be unsuitable for a terminal.

  5. If the reason is still unclear, rerun with --debug to inspect filtering decisions.

An explicitly named hidden file is an edge case: the FAQ explains that ripgrep can search a hidden file passed directly as an input even though it skips hidden files during recursive traversal. For example, naming a hidden file directly is different from expecting a recursive search to discover it. The ripgrep FAQ covers this behavior and the common causes of missing results.

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