Items in my sidebar disappear after a few days

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Items in my sidebar disappear after a few days

I regularly put folders in my sidebar because I frequently use them. Yet most of these items disappear from the sidebar after a few days. And then I have to go through my whole folder-structure in the Finder to get where I want to be. The sidebar used to be stable: what I put there would be there until I removed it. What happened to this? Why does Apple no longer support this crucial feature? How can I restore it. I am currently using Monterey, 12.1, but the bug (as I see it) also occurred in the previous system. I am on a MacBook Pro 13', with M1 (but it also occurred since a year on my previous MacBook Pro).

Can someone please help. Is there perhaps a Unix way to deal with it on the Terminal?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Jan 16, 2022 5:57 AM

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Answer 1

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leroydouglas

Community+ 2024

Level 10

183,840 points

Jan 16, 2022 9:32 AM in response to robvangerwen

robvangerwen wrote:

I regularly put folders in my sidebar because I frequently use them. Yet most of these items disappear from the sidebar after a few days. And then I have to go through my whole folder-structure in the Finder to get where I want to be. The sidebar used to be stable: what I put there would be there until I removed it. What happened to this? Why does Apple no longer support this crucial feature? How can I restore it. I am currently using Monterey, 12.1, but the bug (as I see it) also occurred in the previous system. I am on a MacBook Pro 13', with M1 (but it also occurred since a year on my previous MacBook Pro).

Can someone please help. Is there perhaps a Unix way to deal with it on the Terminal?

Sounds like 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

Rebuild your sidebar and see if it sticks.

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Answer 2

robvangerwen Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 17, 2022 12:35 AM in response to leroydouglas

This is the only thing I did not do before, and it sounds plausible, though when I migrated my old laptop to my new one I did a fresh install of the system software.

I now deleted the com.apple.finder.plist and added some silly folders to my sidebar to see if they will stuck (even if I never click on them).

Thanks Leroy.

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Answer 3

robvangerwen Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 27, 2022 3:46 AM in response to leroydouglas

I cheered too quickly. Your solution worked for ten day, and since this morning I am back at square one. Only 9 items remain in my sidebar, instead of the approx. 20 I regularly use. So, I think the com.apple.finder.plist is corrupted again.

Something is doing the corrupting, do you have any idea how I could deal with this?

When I migrated to my new laptop I did a fresh install of the system software and all of the applications I use.

This failing sidebar is such a nuisance. By the way, I also noticed that I cannot jump from a folder to its parent folder by way of command-arrow-up, when the folder is based on an alias in a self-made "sidebar" (a folder with links to regularly used folders). If I do command-arrow-up when in such a folder, in the Finder (!), I am transported to the top level of Macintosh HD.

In the Terminal the folder structure is normally accessible with % cd ../

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Answer 4

robvangerwen Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 23, 2022 9:20 AM in response to leroydouglas

This solved my issue. Thanks, Leroy! I found I had already one deleted the com.apple.finder.plist but did not then also force quit the Finder. That did it.

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Items in my sidebar disappear after a few days

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