IPad favorites in Files App Disappear and Reappear

Thanks, David, for noting your experience! I’ve also noted the Recents in Files disappearing. It happens for me, also, in the iWork suite looking at Recent files in the apps. I haven’t had as much reason to check my Deleted files but suspect the same thing is happening there. 

I’ve also been keeping my systems up-to-date. 

For me, when this happens, I can still navigate to the folder to which the favorites point through the ICloud files system, so the folders and files are still accessible. It’s a large interruption to my workflow, though, when the files I’m trying to work with are multiple levels down. 

I, also, deal with the Files app freezing at times and occasionally crashing. Sometimes, this happens when the favorites have disappeared. 

I did report the bug to Apple at Feedback - iPad - Apple. You might try this, also. I’m hoping if enough people report it that Apple will look into it. I’ve also thought about stopping down at an Apple Store to ask about it. I suspect they wouldn’t have a solution, and the problem isn’t reproducible on demand. It might get the bug reported through another system. I haven’t had a chance to do that but my still try. 

I usually have multiple Files windows open and have noticed another problem — probably unrelated. I usually keep windows open for certain folders that I access regularly. When I click on a window that indicates it’s pointed to a particular folder, it fairly often opens another location. It’s likewise frustrating and complicates the missing 

favorites problem when that happens.

I share your desire that this be fixed soon! It has an appreciable affect to my productivity.

Thank you, vomako, for attempting and documenting all of this! Let us know if anything comes from the escalation of your account.

When I was initially searching, I found a few threads in the Apple Support communities as well — none with solutions. A few I can quickly find today are below. There are others related to Dropbox, network shares, and OneDrive favorites in Files disappearing. There is at least one other related to Recent Files in iWork apps disappearing, which I often experience at the same time. I’ve not included those. I’ve experienced this problem for some time, and I think I found several threads in Apple Discussions directly related when I initially was trying to troubleshoot. None of the threads provided a resolution.

Files app favorites randomly disappear - Apple Community

Favorites in the files app randomly disap… - Apple Community…

Why are my favorites and tag items freque… - Apple Community (by vomako)

I haven’t experienced this for a week or so. Sometimes it happens multiple times a day. I use the Lockdown app to block a number of tracking sites, and I did turn that off for a few days. I did turn it back on several days ago and haven’t experienced my favorites disappearing. I’ve wondered if this could be the issue. I’ve tried several times when the favorites disappear to turn the Lockdown app off (or even uninstalling), and it doesn’t resolve the problem over the course of hours. It could be Apple is using an analytics service that I have had blocked through Lockdown and a background task related to Files locks-up. That should be resolved by a restart, though, which doesn’t resolve it unless it starts up, sees unsent analytics data, and locks up again. All this is highly-unsupported speculation, though.

I, also, have Private Internet Access installed but rarely use it. Uninstalling this has not resolved the problem. I do typically use Private Relay, but I’ve tried turning that off without resolution when favorites disappear.

I’ll update if I see the problem come back. Does anyone else have the Lockdown app installed and experience this problem?

I had another anomaly I’ve noticed in File that could be another manifestation of the same problem. As iCloud works to sync a few files, sometimes (not usually), the progress bar will progress a bit, flash near the end and restart over and over again. This can happen over the course of hours — I don’t sit there and watch, but it appears to be working on the same files as I check later.

My internet is generally reliable, and my bandwidth is more than sufficient (250Mbps down, 25Mbps up) for the small files it is trying to sync.

I, also have plenty of SSD space available on each of the iPads.

I’ve wondered, also, if it could be related to the system losing the key to decrypt the hierarchy and then finding it. I’ve wondered, also, if it might be a privileges problem. Another recent thought was that there might be a hidden file somewhere in the file system that is corrupted and causes problems.

I don’t, however, have Advanced Data Protection turned on. Apple can still view my iCloud files if they would choose to. I hope to use ADP but have one system that’s too old to support it, and this problem of disappearing favorites has given me some pause beyond that.

I’ve noticed another iCloud problem for some time. My Mac Mini 2014 keeps a full copy of my iCloud, creates Time Machine backups, and backs up to Backblaze. Sometimes, when I’m working on a file on the iPad Pro 12.9, it will indicate that there are two versions — one on the Mac Mini and one on the iPad Pro 12.9. No one has updated the Mac Mini version, it should just be the most recently downloaded one. The iPad then wants me to choose one of the versions. I choose the iPad version, and all seems fine. Somehow, it seems iCloud loses track of what system is making changes.

Before I had two iPad Pro 12.9s (work and home), I even had iCloud tell me there were two different versions on the same machine and wanted me to choose one. That was particularly odd. I don’t know if it was confused by iCloud not having synced the latest version or something else.

Finally, I notice at times that the Files app reports that iCloud syncing is paused while the system is on external power with a good internet connection (Safari works fine). Sometimes, this seems to coincide with the favorites disappearing.

Hi, _a_sharp_minor_. Thanks for joining the discussion!

I do have quite a number of files; though, Apple’s offering of up to 2TB (even 4TB with dual subscription), should be able to accommodate a large number of files. I’m not even using half of the 2TB at the moment. I did cut the number of files significantly some time ago by zipping up an archive of many very small files.

The files don’t actually disappear. Only their reference in the favorites list in the sidebar of the Files App disappear and reappear. Apple doesn’t directly expose access to the maintenance of this list, so I don’t know how it’s stored or whether it requires multiple keys or just one. The files remain accessible but much harder to find through large hierarchies. The files do not go to the deleted files folder.

I do have multiple full backups of what is in my iCloud files. There’s no need to restore the files, though, as the files remain. Again it’s the references to the files that disappear.

To get around the problem, I did explore the possibility of setting up a folder of aliases. I could, then, open that folder to reference into the various folders I reference often. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the iPad supports following aliases as the Mac does.

Thanks for your ideas. I invite you to note any related challenges you might have faced.

_a_shartp_minor,

I’m assuming from your responses you haven’t experienced this particular problem. The favorites link to particular folders in the file system. It’s integrated directly in the Files app.

I have thought about creating a shortcut to produce a menu that would open various folder in the Files App, but I can also navigate through the file system to get to the folder and particular file I’m looking to use. Creating and maintaining the shortcut for opening folders would require additional time in addition to the other steps you propose above. At the moment I have somewhere around 50 favorites. I, also, need the ability to have two Files windows open side by side to different folders from favorites.

I’m looking for a solution that would resolve aå problem in Apple’s software that would allow me to easily navigate to files through folders in the Favorites sidebar as Apple has designed it. There seems to be a bug in Apple’s software that a small subset of users are experiencing (from multiple threads on this topic). Alternatively, I’m seeking triggers for causing the favorites to disappear so that such a trigger might be avoided.

I thought I’d provide an update — at least so this thread doesn’t automatically close. I have been engaging Apple support on this. I’m connected to engineering I understand through a senior advisor. It’s becoming a long road to be able to catch the senior advisor at the moment there are no favorites. I’ll keep engaging.

Vomako — I do appreciate your finding above to run a shortcut to recreate a specific favorite (per shortcut). I have setup one that gets me close to where I often go in the hierarchy. Yesterday, I noticed that I ran the shortcut to recreate the favorite. It did appear but disappeared after a couple seconds. I ran again, and it appeared and disappeared similarly. The third time it remained until the iPad rebuilt all the favorites — and later removed them again. For a while, I felt like I was fighting the system to keep the favorite from the shortcut present.

I did notice another clue today. Earlier this afternoon, I deleted a few files from iCloud on iPad Pro 12.9” M1 #1. Several hours later, while there were no favorites listed, I checked the recently deleted folder. There was nothing listed. I opened iPad Pro 12.9” M1 #2, and the files were listed there in recently deleted. Both are configured on the same account. Both were on the same wireless network and sitting within 3 feet of one another. Both had full arcs for the wireless and worked for other operations on the internet. I suspect the recently deleted items will reappear on that machine around the time the favorites reappear.

My calls to first level support had me resync time on all my Macs, iPads, and iPhone. They had me delete all VPN profiles. One agent actually saw the files disappearing while he was screensharing my iPad after all this was done.

cybercrs, thanks for your response here. It happens for me on 3 iPads and my iPhone X. One device has “download full” for the photo library, and the others have “optimize” selected. I haven’t notice it happen more frequently on one set over the other.

Apple and I have been talking regularly about the issue, and they continue to gather logs and have me try various things. So far, it continues to happen. I’d invite all who have this problem to contact Apple and report the issue so that they can log the issue on multiple systems and, hopefully, find the cause with additional data.