Error 36 in Finder for every folder I try to copy to an external drive

Question

Error 36 in Finder for every folder I try to copy to an external drive

So I wanted to do a backup of my documents on my external HDD and got this error 36 but it doesn't specify which file is affected. It just stops copying everything.

After trying different drives (external USB stick with APFS, external HDD with exFAT, USB-C SSD with APFS) I found out that I get the same error whenever I try to copy a folder. I can copy single files though. Of course this can't be the workaround here.

My MacOS is the latest version Monterey 12.6 and I am really running out of options with this issue.

The usual dot_clean method doesn't work at all. And since it happens with every folder I try it with I really find it hard to believe that they are all corrupted.

Posted on Oct 9, 2022 4:54 AM

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Answer 1

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Community User Author

Oct 9, 2022 7:18 AM in response to PRP_53

Thanks for your reply. I already found out what you wrote and I find it really hard to believe that EVERY folder I want to copy contains a corrupt file especially because there are lots of folders that don’t contain files with a . or _ in the file name. Also the error 36 message doesn’t contain the name of the corrupt file so I really doubt that there are corrupt files at all that are causing this issue.

In the meantime I found out that I can copy folders that are not in my iCloud drive. So right now I‘m trying my luck with logging out of iCloud, logging back in and copying all data from there back to my Mac and after that I hope that I can copy the files on my external drives.

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Answer 2

PRP_53

Level 10

84,643 points

Oct 9, 2022 6:48 AM in response to Community User

Error -36 usually occurs when a file with a '. ' and '_' in its name becomes corrupted, or there is some other problem with it. When that happens, the Finder is unable to work with the files you are trying to copy, move, or delete because it can't find the information it needs.

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Answer 3

Oct 10, 2022 10:03 AM in response to PRP_53

Logging out of iCloud and logging back in resolved the issue. It totally makes no sense to me as the data on my internal SSD before logging out should have been exactly the same as the data that I downloaded from the iCloud after I logged back in but at least it helped in this situation.

Of course it was really annoying that I had to download the whole 180 GB again which took me more than 6 hours with my 50 Mbit line.

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