Adobe Bridge doesn't recognize external files using Catalina

Open the System Preferences. Go into the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy settings. Click the lock and enter your admin password. Add Bridge.

I didn't need to add it to Full Disk Access to get to any other drives.

Yes, to a degree, barbturtlo. what helped for me was to rebuilt the Spotlight index. as for granting it full disk access permission, that's not a problem. Apparently the "new" default is read only for everything, unless you have said otherwise. so, click on/highlight the external drive you want to change, and do a Get Info on it (command/Apple+I). you should get a long window. at the bottom of that window you will see sharing and permissions. to change that, click on the padlock on the bottom to unlock it. you will need to type in your main/admin user name and password, the one you used to login to your imac when you first started it up. you should see a list of users on the left, and the permissions on the right. change it as you like. then when you are done, click the padlock to lock it again and save your changes. it will ask you, again, for your user name and password, type it in and say "OK" and you are done.

Do the same thing for any other external drives you might be having trouble with. As for the Spotlight index rebuilt. that isn't too hard either. I don't know why Catalina has trouble finding stuff , but sometimes it does. The file/application might be there, but I can't see it or access it. Go to system preferences, then go to Spotlight, then click on the Privacy button. add the hard drive that is giving you trouble, then remove it by clicking on the (-) button at the bottom. try and find a file on that hard drive and you will see the cog spinning around showing you that Spotlight is rebuilting its index. when it is done, and the cog stops spinning, then the file will show up......

like I said, I don't know why it has trouble finding stuff, but sometimes it does, and this fixes that....

hope this helps you a bit

john b

Again how is the drive formatted? Control (right) - click on the disk's icon on the desktop and select Get Info from the contextual menu.

Are you able to see files on those drives via the Finder?

I hadn't opened Bridge in a while (I only use it to tag files I'm about to archive). Had it open, then turned on an external drive for testing. The OS immediately tossed out this message before it would show the drive in its interface.

I could likely remove that distraction by adding bridge to Full Disk Access.

Anywho, I then went through the drive folders to see if there was any file type Bridge wouldn't show. No problems. TIFF, JPEG, PSD, even really old images (OS 9 and earlier) without a file extension.

Short answer, I couldn't replicate your problem, so I'm not sure why Bridge is ignoring them for you. The only thing I hadn't tested for a full comparison to what you've mentioned is putting a few small PSD files on drive formatted as ExFAT.

For that, I formatted a 64 GB flash drive as ExFAT, twice. Once with Master Boot Record as the map, and the other as GUID to see if one or the other might trip up Bridge. Neither did. All image types I put on it showed up without a problem in Bridge.

In that case it's a question for Adobe support personnel.

How are the external HDs formatted and connected to your Mac?

Keep us posted please.