My downloads folder disappeared from my finder sidebar.

Click the Finder icon on the Dock.

Navigate to your Home folder and locate the Downloads folder.

Drag the Downloads folder onto the Side bar and release it.

Alternatively you can go to Finder > Settings > Sidebar tab and make sure the Downloads folder has a check mark to include it in the sidebar.

Organize your files in the Finder on Mac - Apple Support

The settings solution to turn the check on the sidebar for the Downloads folder doesn't work as the Downloads folder has a "-" sign. This happened after I migrated from my previous Macbook Pro Intel i5 2019 to my new Macbook Pro M3 Pro. Please help.

Additionally my Desktop and Documents folder have a "-local" text added to their names, and also don't keep any file on them, as they dissapear immediately as soon as anything is downloaded there. Definitely help needed.

We're having the same exact problem as moises117. The downloads folder has a "-" whenever we open the finder preferences, and when we click it to make it a check, nothing happens and it reverts back to "-" if we close and then reopen finder preferences. Also, if we use "go" and then click on the downloads option, we get a message that says "The operation can’t be completed because the item can’t be found." We need help to either figure out how to get the downloads folder to work or to create a new one somehow.

One of our employees suddenly lost her downloads and documents folders and when going to the home location the only thing appearing are aliases. When you click on the alias the message "the operations can't be completed because the item can't be found" appears. We have searched for the folder and cannot find it.

This is a 2019 MacBook Pro.