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Finder Favorites Disappear

Every couple weeks folders in my finder sidebar disappear. Brand new computer, have reinstalled Monteray 12.3.1 but it still happens. It currently seems to be my google drive folders randomly disappearing. They were there this morning and now all of a sudden they are gone. This file "com.apple.finder.plist" is not on my computer to delete. Anyone know what is going on?

Posted on May 4, 2022 11:26 AM

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Posted on May 9, 2022 10:57 AM

Are you sure that disappeared and are not just hidden?

If you hover the cursor near the word Favorites, you should see the > as in the picture below. Click it to twirl open the Favorites.


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Jul 3, 2022 7:19 AM in response to gagner

It's happening to me as well. Just started a couple weeks ago. My favorites disappear. It's possible it happens after I close files in the favorites folder. I do not have google docs...I went through and removed it from my system. But my favorites folders are on iCloud. I've tried everything I've read about this problem, and it doesn't help. Please...someone find out the problem.

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Mar 10, 2023 4:45 PM in response to gagner

Boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Then reboot normally and test again. .


Note:  if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.  This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.


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May 5, 2022 9:54 AM in response to gagner

Hi gagner,


You'll want to be sure your settings are correct with the help of the guide page here: Organize your files in the Finder on Mac


As you've isolated to Google Drive folders, check out some previous posts for helpful information or steps that may help using the links below.


Files/Folders Missing from Finder when using Google Drive FS on macOS


Google Drive in Finder Sidebar


Google drive disappeared from side bar


Dropbox / Google Drive Finder Integration Missing


Google Drive


How to Add Google Drive to Finder


Best.


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Aug 11, 2022 5:07 AM in response to gagner

I think I have found a solution. It has been working for about a week now.

You create local aliases to the desired drive or drive folder and then drag them to the sidebar.

As a temporary solution, this is perfectly sufficient for me. The only drawback so far are the incorrect icons (file instead of folder).

If someone had a solution for that as well, you wouldn't even notice the difference.


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Oct 17, 2022 3:32 AM in response to gagner

A few months late but I think I finally found the solution to this annoying issue of Google Drive folders disappearing from Favorites in Finder.


Same like Wazza_Mac and josiahpierce I've found the solution is to change the My Drive syncing options from 'Stream files' to 'Mirror files'.



I can confirm that now it's been 7-8 weeks after I changed the settings on mine, and all my Google Drive folders in Finder Favourites are still there - even after restarts and shut downs :)


I'm guessing with the 'Stream files' option, GDrive constantly purge the offline folders in the Mac, hence why they keep disappearing from Favourites. The 'Mirror files' option takes more space in your Mac as it will mirror everything in your GDrive, but it will solve this issue (and I believe the old Backup & Sync used to default to mirror mode anyway).

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Nov 6, 2022 6:37 AM in response to Old Toad

@Old-Toad No, that's not what we're missing; there has been a known problem with MacOS and Google Drive.


My experience has been fixed for the last couple of weeks, solution/checks below. I received a prompt from the Google Drive app one day, saying that due to an update (MacOS or Google Drive app -I can't remember which) that my Google Drive files would be moved to a new location on my 'Macintosh HD' (SSD, obviously). The prompt mentioned something about compatibility which got me hopeful for a fix. Since then I have not had any of my Google Drive shortcuts removed from my Favourites in Finder. It looks like Google/Apple found a way to keep Google Drive and Finder reliably in sync each time we run our MacOS. Hurrah!


I'm on Monterey 12.5.1 and Google Drive 66.0.3.0 if that helps, M1 Macbook Pro 2021.


TLDR: An update to Google Drive (and/or) MacOS fixed this for me; it involved a prompt telling me my Google Drive files would be moved from one location on my Macintosh HD to another. Screenshot below.


The new location looks like: /Users/macos-username/Library/CloudStorage/google-email-address


I don't recall what the previous location was, and I don't care. Everything works reliably. My preferences have Google Drive set to Streaming files, which is exactly how I'd like things. Screenshot below shows that I can no longer change the storage location on my Macintosh HD for the 'streaming location.' I believe this location could be changed before the update, though I couldn't care less if this has fixed the problem. It's difficult to recall, but this combination of updates likely happened 3-4 weeks ago.


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May 9, 2022 9:09 AM in response to OrigamiFan1

Hi, I am also having this problem. None of the suggested links above address the problem. I went through my Google Drive and chose subfolders that I use often for projects and drag them into the sidebar as favorites in Finder. Then a week, maybe two weeks later all of these favorites disappear and I have to do it all over again. This did not used to happen until I was forced to change from Google Backup & Sync to Drive. I'm running Monterey 12.3.1.

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Aug 2, 2022 1:18 PM in response to gagner

I'm having the same issue on both my computers, an iMac and a MacBook Pro, both running the latest version of Monterey. This has been going on for months (at least since march, it's now august), only for Google Drive folders as well.


Sometimes they will disappear when the computer is inactive (locked or off or sleeping), sometimes in the middle of working on something. When it happens while I work, all folders currently open on Finder tabs switch back to my home folder and the back button is disabled or just useless (keeps refreshing the same folder).

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Finder Favorites Disappear

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