Finder stopped working after macOS 14 update

I was having this problem, and for what it's worth, I too have my user folder on an external drive, connected via Thunderbolt. (Turning off iCloud Drive fixed the problem instantly.)

Open Spotlight (command-space); if there's a blue progress bar at the top then it's indexing.

Once indexing finished my Finder started behaving as expected.

I had the same issue. However, I am on M1 MacBook Pro. This is what worked for me:

1. Disabled iCloud Sync: Settings -> Apple ID (Your username/persona on the very top) -> In the section "Apps using iCloud", iCloud Drive would be showing 'On'. Click on iCloud Drive, a popup will open. Toggle Off both the toggles in the popup and click 'Done'. Click 'Ok' or 'Agree' for any other popups that appear.
2. Shut Down the system.
3. Restart the system.
4. After Restart, the iCloud drive should not be syncing with your Mac.
5. Now follow step 1 again and but this time, just Toggle On the iCloud Drive / Toggle On all toggles in the popup.
6. Hopefully things should work fine now.

How many of you with these problems have your user home folder on an external drive?

Turning off iCloud Drive fixes it, yes - but that’s not really a solution. As wolfsk posted, the external drive must be formatted as APFS…and I can confirm that that resolved the issue for me. Once the external drive containing my user home directories was formatted as APFS, I was able to turn iCloud Drive back on. Thanks, wolfsk!

Turning off iCloud Drive fixed the problem...

Come on Apple, please fix this and do something on Quality Control and Change Management. This is getting ridiculous

I purchased a 2023 iMac and updated to Ventura 14.1, and then to 14.2. When I rebooted, Finder was frozen, and in Settings even my user ID and Cloud settings were not visible, so I was unable to switch off cloud to test the finder again. In the end I used Disc First Aid Utility and erased the computer. I reinstalled the Ventura 13 system the computer came with (not the Sonoma version which has this reported frozen Finder problem). Then I used migration Assistant to retrieve my data files from my previous iMac, and downloaded clean installations of my additional applications from the App Store and web sites. Everything is working again. I am going to stick with Ventura. If anyone finds out an upgrade has resolved the problem please keep us updated? Thanks, Lisa.

Deactivate iCloud Drive in the System settings and file a case with Apple support. I have the exact same problem and they have been working on it for over a week now.

I do believe that this could be related to user folders being on an external drive (as is the case for both of us and others who have reported this problem), but Apple should fix this urgently

Yes I agree I think it was indexing and finally finished and I was able to run Northern Softworks “Sonoma Cache Cleaner” which also repaired permissions and did a finder checkup. Finder Seems to be running ok right now.

I also have to same problem. Finder is totally unusable with iCloud drive turned on. As soon as I turn it off, everything is fine again. But I need to use iCloud, I'm paying for storage, etc. I sync between iPhone and iPad.....I have the iMac with the M1 chip.

I went so far as to do a "clean" install on an erased SSD and the issue returned one day later. The only fix is to turn off iCloud Drive completely.

Had the same issue and followed all steps to no avail. What worked and made the "circling" stop was, relaunch Finder and just click "don't reopen". That's it, it's now working as before.

Sonoma 14.1.2 Finder missing issue. This is driving us nuts.

Previous efforts: GeekSquad tune up. Update Sonoma. Clean up desktop on shared MacBook.

When I start up and log in, the screen goes black.

I wait.

Then the Menu bar displays the Safari Menu. No Finder. No Wallpaper. Only Safari has not yet been opened.

No status bar in the top right (wifi, search, date, nothing).

I wait.

Then I click on the top right corner and the status bar pops in.

Still no Finder, no wallpaper, etc.

Then the Dock fills in.

Finder does not respond.

Then finally wallpaper.

Relaunching the Finder in the dock makes the menu bar disappear.

I wait.

I click the menu bar and the Safari menu appears.

I open Safari using the dock (Safari is still not yet open by the way, only shows it as active in the menu bar)

I look for solutions. One says to open the Applications Folder. LOLOL. You need Finder to open a folder.

Then I thought, wait! Let me try the search window. So I searched for "Applications" and the folder was an option, so I clicked on that.

FINALLY I get the Finder to open. And all the desktop shortcuts along with it.

Next time we start up, I will use the search to find the Applications folder. Let's hope that works.

I hope they sort this out. My husband and I are in our 70s and this is not trivial for us.

100% ‘what he said’. I turned off iCloud; backed up my HFS+ external drive with my user accounts; reformatted it as APFS; restored from the backup and reenabled iCloud… no more Finder hang.

Alright. Steps that I tried:

• Reinstall Sonoma
• Disable iCloud Sync - I tried it multiple times, but the system settings were freezing after disabling it, I waited one hour, but nothing was happening.
• Change the system language from Polish to English
• Multiple restarts

Finally, after one of the restarts, Finder was able to boot. 🥳

PS. Disable iCloud Sync never worked, it was enabled all the time.

Got the same problem. Waited for a while, and nothing happened, so i pressed "stop Updating and Turn Off". It took me 2 Times to work. After deleting the icloud drive from finder i activated the sync, and then it worked just fine.