Finder Freezes up & can't access External Drives

I have an iMac that is just out of warranty and is all of a sudden freezing up and glitching when I use Finder. It also completely freezes when I try to access my external hard drives that I've used since 2019 and keep all my files on. I need to access these files and can't. Can anyone help me?

What I've done so far:

Updated the OS to Ventura 13.3.1
Updated Psd and Ai
Deleted old Apps and Utilities that I recognize (some I'm not sure what they are)
Relaunched Finder several times
Shutdown my computer over night and restarted

The problem is still happening. Also, in Finder when I save files to a folder they don't show up in that folder for about 5 mins or more but they are there b/c if I try to save the files there again it says "that file already exists do you want to replace it?" Also, sometimes when I open a folder on desktop it is totally blank and shows nothing is there but there is actually 50+ Psd, jpg, and Pfds in there and they don't re-populated unless I click "clean up by" which sucks B/c I like to place them manually in different areas of the folder. These issues have been happening for a lot longer.

I have enough MEMORY. According to the Activity Monitor, Memory used is 9GB of 32GB and my HD is using 1.27TB of 2TB

If anyone could help I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Posted on May 5, 2023 7:41 AM

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

32,777 points

Posted on May 5, 2023 8:26 AM

If a simple reboot of your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (press and hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer to safe boot (5 min) so be patient.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Safe mode is non-destructive to user data. It’s not a cure-all, but very often corrects weird software behavior by forcing the OS to do cache clearing and other housekeeping. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's expected.

Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again.

Also, this may be an issue with your hard drive. Try booting in Recovery mode and running the Disk Utility First Aid routine on the startup drive.

• Shut down the Mac. Then press the power button to reboot and immediately press and hold the Command and R keys (⌘R) until you see the Apple logo and progress bar.

• When the macOS Utilities window appears, select Disk Utility, click View > Show All Devices. Select the top-most device and click First Aid. Also run First Aid on any indented drive volume listed below that device.

With luck this will repair any issues that it discovers and get you back on track.

For additional guidance, please see: How to repair a Mac disk with Disk Utility - Apple Support

View in context

Finder Freezes up & can't access External Drives

Similar questions