Finder Favorites Keep Disappearing

dean970 wrote:

Hello,

I have added manually many folders to the Finder Favorites sidebar to gain quick access to these locations. Every now and then they just disappear without any prior sign or notification. This is very frustrating!!!! The system default locations (Desktop, Applications, AirDrop, etc) always remain in the Favorites , however, my manually added folders keep disappearing in every month or 2-3 weeks. I have to re-add them manually which is a joke considering the fact that I have one of the most modern laptop with one of the most modern operating system out there (MacBook Pro with M1 Max and OS X 12.1 [although I already had this issue with 12.0]).

I tried restarting but didn't help. I searched for other solutions on the internet but couldn't find anything relevant.

How to fix this very annoying issue???

If this is a corrupt plist, delete the com.apple.finder.plist

Found here Finder>Go>Go to Folder copy and paste:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

Relaunch your Finder from the >Force Quit>Finder>Relaunch

Get to know the Finder on your Mac - Apple Support

dean970 wrote:

• Thanks again leroydouglas!

I experienced again that my favorites have disappeared from Finder sidebar, so I went through your checklist.

Here are my results:

deleting the com.apple.finder.plist didn't help. (It's also quite strange that immediately after I delete it, it comes back automatically with the same "Last Edit time" as before deleting it.)

• SafeBoot didn't help either, same Finder sidebar as with normal booting.

• I have no cleaner/optimizer/Anti-virus/VPN apps installed. I do have VPN connections configured in System Preferences / Network.

There is one piece of important information that I excluded from my original post:

All of the folders that I drag to the Finder favourites sidebar are Google Drive folders. I have Google Drive installed (Version: 54.0.3.0 - Apple Silicon), and it works a bit different than the now retired "Backup and Sync with Google" app. So I drag manually my preferred Google Drive folders to the Sidebar and that's it. For testing, this time I decided to add a local folder too. This way, I hopefully can tell next time whether the disappearing happens only to Google Drive folders or all of my manually added folders (including local folders too).

Thanks for your help!

If in doubt refer to the developers website; Support/Help/FAQ/known issues/compatibility:

Google Drive Help https://support.google.com/drive/?hl=en#topic=14940

Contact Google Drive support

Contact Google Drive support - Computer

dean970 wrote:

Thank you leroydouglas for your quick and precise answer!

I will keep this in mind for the next time when my favorites disappear from the Finder sidebar.

However, I'm not comfortable with a solution that requires deleting a system file or system preference file. I also do not know how to evaluate whether this "plist" is corrupt or not. Why should it be corrupt? Also, what is the guarantee for not doing a bigger harm by deleting this "plist" file?

I read on the forums that this issue isn't new to Mac OS users, so I would be very curious about Apple's official addressing on this matter. Or is it okay with Apple to have software glitches like this in their flagship laptop products?

Computers are nothing more than a accumulation of binary language, a CPU clock chip has only two states: On=1 and Off=0. Today's CPUs are capable of reading 4,000,000,000 1s and 0s per second or more...corruption happen, nothing new here...

The Finder plist is in your User account, this is not a System file as you indicate above. You do not have r/w privileges to System files...not since macOS Catalina...

ref: About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple ..

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650

As an alternative you can always erase your computer install a fresh copy of the macOS and set up your user count as new to replace the default Finder.plist in your user account.

ref: Erase and reinstall macOS - Apple Support - https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/erase-and-reinstall-macos-mh27903/mac

However, deleting the plist is much simpler, and will rebuild a default plist on reboot or relaunch of Finder—nothing new here either.

 To trouble shoot further you can:

 —Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen, does a 5 minute disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache,  etc. 

Login and test. Reboot  as normal and test.  Caches get rebuilt automatically.

In Safe mode third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled, it removes malware, etc hampering smooth operation, however a  reboot will put it back to normal mode.

This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode. 

 —Test issue in another user (or guest user) account https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-up-other-users-on-your-mac-mtusr001/mac

  This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

Here's some food for thought: unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer, school or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint.  Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, Zenmate, and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites.