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Mac OS Catalina New Folder on File Menu Greyed Out

After Mac OS Catalina was released I created multiple "containers" on my hard drive. One container is running my old OS "Mojave" and another I installed a fresh copy of "Catalina".


The purpose of this was so I could start transitioning over to "Catalina" and I could still run any old 32-bit applications under the older "Mojave" version.


The problem I am experiencing is that "New Folder" is greyed out on the Finder when running Mac OS Catalina. So I cannot create any new folders while using the Finder on "Macintosh HD" hard drive.


I did hear about the new Catalina version creating two separate hard drives. One, the "Macintosh HD" which houses the Mac OS and is read-only. And the other being "Macintosh HD - Data" which is "supposed" to be the drive where everything is able to be written to. As far as I am to understand though the two hard drives appear as one on Catalina. While running Catalina I only see the one hard drive "Macintosh HD" on the screen but I cannot create any new folders on that drive from the Finder.


If I boot off my Mac OS Mojave container I can see the "Macintosh HD" container in the Finder as well as the "Macintosh HD - Data" container and the container that contains the Mac OS Mojave. This way I could create a new folder on the "Macintosh HD - Data" container if I wanted to. But I shouldn't need to go this route just to create a new folder on the Catalina drive.


Should I just erase the Catalina container and install another fresh copy or is there something I need to do to be able to create new folders on the main part of the hard drive while running Mac OS Catalina normally?


Thanks for anyone's advice. I am running Mac OS Catalina on a "Mac Book Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)" with macOS Mojave 10.14.6 in one container and macOS Catalina 10.15.2 in the other.



MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jan 4, 2020 3:55 PM

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Posted on Jan 4, 2020 6:05 PM

You can't do anything to the root level of the startup drive in Catalina.

Make your folders in your Home folder (or anywhere inside of /Users.

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Mac OS Catalina New Folder on File Menu Greyed Out

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