macOS Monterey finder spring back horizontal scrolling

Hi all, I just discovered that double clicking anywhere at the top of any open folder expands the whole folder vertically and horizontally evenly and no longer runs to the left because everything is geometrically distributed, the inconvenience is having to do it every time, but it can help I think.

Hi Victor_D, I tried your approach: does not work for me, does not change anything, unfortunately.

I've said I strongly believe it's a QuickLook display issue when in Column View, grabbing the focus of the mouse and (and probably also the keyboard) and forcing the Finder Window to redraw the rightmost item being rendered.

I've got a feeling this happens when a column lists .pdf, .eml or .txt files, because QuickLook renders those files in a box that also allows scrolling with two-finger (WHAT A GREAT GUI IDEA, A SCROLLABLE BOX EMBEDDED IN A SCROLLABLE WINDOW!!!). And when you do scroll when your cursor is in that box, you can not scroll the column view in any direction: you just scroll the QuickLook preview. You have to move the mouse pointer out of the QuickLook render box to enable "column scrolling" again (that part I agree with, this makes sense and is "discoverable" by the user).

Still, Apple: can you please urgently send this hint to your best QuickLook and Finder Window engineers, and have her/him analyse finely the QuickLook routine vs the cursor positioning in the Column hierarchy?

Currently, the QuickLook rendering triggers a rightmost refresh of the column view, no matter where the horizontal sliders are positioned.

But it should be the reverse: it's the horizontal sliding that should preempt the Quicklook refresh routine. If we scrolled left (even by a single pixel), then QuickLook should be disabled. We're obviously not QuickLooking if we scrolled left.

Makes sense? Anyone confirms my intuition on the filetypes involved?

Also, huge display error in the QuickLook render box, for a PDF: you have two horizontal arrows displayed if the PDF has more than one page, but you have to scroll vertically to show the next pages. CONFUSING!

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

If anyone wants to now how I went back to Catalina/Big Sur:

Go to this page from Apple.

How to create a bootable installer for macOS

https://support.apple.com/en-za/HT201372

Downloaded Catalina and created a bootable USB. Backed up all my data, wasn't much as I already did it in early December.

I then booted with USB, chose Disk Utility from the menu. Wiped the whole hard drive, created new partition, formatted with APFS encrypted, go out of Disk Utility and install Catalina. If you want to go straight to Big Sur, just create a Big Sur bootable USB. After installation I configured my MacBook and installed apps as if it was the first time setting up my MacBook from the box.

If anyone wants to now how I went back to Catalina/Big Sur:

Go to this page from Apple.

How to create a bootable installer for macOS

https://support.apple.com/en-za/HT201372

Downloaded Catalina and created a bootable USB. Backed up all my data, wasn't much as I already did it in early December.

I then booted with USB, chose Disk Utility from the menu. Wiped the whole hard drive, created new partition, formatted with APFS encrypted, go out of Disk Utility and install Catalina. If you want to go straight to Big Sur, just create a Big Sur bootable USB. After installation I configured my MacBook and installed apps as if it was the first time setting up my MacBook from the box.

I have the same issue. Posted here > https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253314686

!!!POSSIBLE FIX!!!

Okay, this had frustrated the **** out of me for weeks, but has suddenly been resolved (at least for now). After @marhoh posted his workaround, I tried it and it didn't work. All it accomplished was messing with how the files showed up in folder and did nothing about the spring-back issue. I forgot about it until this morning, when I realized I hadn't put my file sorting back to the way it was. I did that and the spring-back issue is GONE!!!

I can't guarantee this will work for you, but, from what I remember, this is what I did:

1. With Finder selected, go to the menu bar and choose "View."
2. If "Use Groups" is checked, uncheck it.
3. Before moving to the next step, choose any folder you have on your drive, as long as it allows you to open multiple subfolders so that you can test the spring-back effect. It may do it one more time, but should stop after that.
4. As an added measure, go to to View -> Sort By and choose "Name."
5. Now go to View -> Sort By and choose "Kind."

I have been testing the fix for the past 15 minutes and no more spring-back effect! However, if I check "Use Groups" again, the spring-back comes back and I have to go back through those steps. No idea why this worked for me, nor do I care. Still hoping Apple does a proper fix of it, but, for now, I'm happy.

Good luck!

I found the same "spring back" problem a few months ago, sometime after upgrading to OS 11...along with a few other minor but nagging and stupid flaws, and *one simple temporary solution:

• After moving, copying, renaming, aliasing, or changing tags for files within the same Finder window of a USB drive, the Finder starts getting screwey. I get the 'processing' icon or whatever it's called (small circle of radiating lines, not the "beach ball") and it may or may not recover. This does not happen in other Finder windows currently up...until I build up a workload in them.
• Finder starts failing to display contents of my USB drives (making me think I've lost gigabytes of data), with my data drive sometimes crashing and deleting the shortcuts in my sidebar. It may take a few Finder restarts or even a Computer reboot to clear it up and get back to normal.
• Finder starts bogging down and eventually crashes...if I don't restart it myself.

*I have found one way to clear these up, and possibly other Finder flaws: 'launder' the Finder window. When the window starts bogging down, I click on my internal OS drive for a few seconds, and then use the back button to go back where I was in the USB drive, and everything is peachy keen...for an indeterminate time.

Perhaps other solutions described here temporarily clear up whatever processing errors are building up...though with more effort. I'd like to hear why these work.

Also, when pasting into TextEdit, a huge block of blank text appears in from of the pasted text. It's like a giant tab, and is deleted by one keystroke...but I switched back to an older version of TextEdit to avoid it. (There's an entry on this elsewhere in Apple Discussions.) Also, sometimes the keystroke for copy does not work, and I must use a right click. This especially happens with web text, especially with MS web apps. I don't know if 'laundering' Finder helps this.

And I hate that aliases don't display icons any more, since maybe OS 10.10. This has ruined years of cross-referencing thousands of images.

I also have catastrophic problems in my third-party Graphic Converter...which they fix with an update...until Apple makes another update.

None of these have been fixed in later upgrades, even to OS 12. Come on, Apple, I've been with you since my beige 1996 G3, and you had me in 1993 with a Classic Mac...

[ Late-2014 Mac mini, OS 11 to 12.1. Desktops will never die. ]

I have research and find that this way can help you, just following this step by step:

1. Relaunch Finder
2. Restart your Mac
3. Delete the corrupted Finder PLIST file
4. Debug the Trackpad or mouse settings
5. Reset NVRAM/PRAM
6. Update your Mac

Relaunch Finder

When Finder performs abnormally, the first thing you can do is to Force Quit Finder to relaunch it.

• Click the Apple Menu > Force Quit.
• Select Finder in the pop-up Force Quit Applications window, and then click Relaunch.
• Click Relaunch on the confirmation window.

Now, go to check if you have a well functional Finder now.

Thanks

I have the same problem on a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" that I just installed Monterey 12.0.1 and I just purchased a MacBook Pro 2021 M1 Max that came with Monterey 12.0 and the first thing I did was update it to 12.0.1 and I have the same issue. A bit annoying.

Jeff

Hi there, I m having the same issue (the Finder horizontal scrolling), which started right after I installed Monterey. As a specification: I erased the volume/partition, then I reinstalled Catalina, then I upgraded with Monterey. Previously I was using the latest BigSur which it worked just fine. Also, today I realized that switching between various sound output, for example from Headphone to Mac Speakers and back does not work properly, basically I could not undo that action and after I restarted the machine it worked. However, simply restarting the machine will not fix the Finder horizontal scrolling, which it`s a bit annoying... . Hoping for a new Monterey 12.0.x to fix the bug. Cheers.

Ditto, brand new 2021 MacBook Pro 14 inch, worked great, did its update to Monterey and now seeing the exact same behavior (initially thought it was a mouse issue but it's consistent across input devices)

I'm having the same issue on 3 different machines, a Late 2014 iMac, a 2018 iMac, and a Late 2015 Macbook Air. It only seems to be an issue in Column view. Not only is it jumping horizontally across the window to the top file, but it also widens my columns to unnecessarily wide panels. Restarting DOES NOT FIX this issue, as mentioned by WEBundle_xyz. I've read some temporary fixes related to the Trackpad settings, but that seemed to only last temporarily and my main two machines use mice as opposed to the trackpad.

WEBundle_xyz also mentioned a sound issue as well. I'm only today experiencing that for the first time, I was connected to a Bluetooth device this morning for audio, and it would only play through my built-in speakers, as opposed to the Bluetooth device. Wound up having to restart my computer for it to connect to Bluetooth.

Hoping Apple will address this issue, as I haven't seen anything like this happen in the 15 years I've owned Apple computers.

Same here, a brand new 2021 M1 MacBook Pro 16. This is not the only problem on a new machine with monterey. Seems like apple is starting to roll out buggy system and machines and no fix. E.G. I can not see my iCloud drive files too on a new machine. Thinking on installing big sur and than updating. Tried everything – no fix

What exactly is the problem with the iCloud Drive? Do you not see it in the Sidebar? Does it not show the contents? And, sorry if too obvious, but are you logged in to the same id as in other devices?