Finder stopped working after macOS 14 update

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!

Safe Mode - about the same. Finder eventually responds - but EVERYTHING that relies on Finder has the same lag. Trying to resize a window - have to wait for Finder to catch up. Still no files in iCloud. From System Settings it takes forever to move from one menu item to another (like trying to check iCloud settings). THIS IS BAD!

I am wondering if anyone from Apple reads these posts (other than maybe moderators) and if something like this gets to developers or is just sitting in this thread. I would hope that impacted people post at Product Feedback - Apple , which supposedly gets to Apple.

Agree with Olaf....really apple its pretty pathetic! A glitch with Finder of all things. Quit worrying about releasing a green iPhone and add some QC!

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.

It "worked" for a few days - then stopped syncing local files to iCloud then started freezing all things Finder again - definitely broke. Sure wish Apple would get off their butts and do something about this.

Th3Cr0w wrote:

Ummmm...no. I don't think you quite understand, chdsl; turning off iCloud Drive is the only option we have if we want to use our Macs. We don't WANT to turn it off, but the Finder is unresponsive and the computer is unusable unless we do.

The update has not fixed the issue. Those of us who need to have our user folders on an external drive MUST change the file system on the external to APFS if we want to turn iCloud Drive back on. I haven't done this yet, but I'm assuming that wolfsk is correct.

An external drive will always be considered as an external drive, that is, a device that can be removed at any time. And, that's where your problem exists. It's always better to keep the user folder in the internal drive, but keep any important files/folders in an external drive. The external drive is just an additional storage.

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.

If you cannot print out and do not have a portable device, try doing screen grabs and print the screen grabs: SCREEN GRAB Press Shift ⇧ + Command ⌘ + 5 on your keyboard, then choose to capture your entire screen, an app window or a specific area.

If you have a portable device, copy the discussion link to your iphone and open the link when you arrive at apple store, so you can share it via AirDrop with your apple consultant.

lisafromcanyonleigh , since Apple releases a new OS every year, I assume that resources are focused on that....

If they pushed out these releases less often, maybe bugs could be fixed.

Off the topic question: is there any way to see the posts in some order (e.g. last one first)? They seem to be all over the place and hard to find.

Well...that's sort of silly, Longhorn5570. If everything you described was actually the way that Sonoma worked (i.e. slow launch speed, slow indexing, repeated AppleID dialogue boxes popping up, inability to retain printer connections, etc), I would agree that "Apple seems to have completely lost its focus on the basic user experience". But as everyone who has posted here knows - and I assume that includes you - this is not the way that Sonoma is supposed to work. It's not normal behaviour, and it's clear that there's a BAD bug causing the problem. Apple hasn't lost their focus on the UX; they've just lost the ability to properly test OS software before releasing it. Perhaps "unleashing" it is more apt in this case. lol

OMG!!!!! This worked wow!!!! I tried LITERALLY everything to get my finder to work after updating to Sonoma, called apple support and they were no help. I've spent hours on this

The minute I started downloading Ventura all my files came back, visible on my desktop and finder popped open, also I could finally access my iCloud in settings.

You are the goat!!! PSA if you have this bug, go to App Store and search for Ventura. start downloading and hopefully it will fix this bug for you too

i am losing my mind. lost so much work trying to solve this, it's icloud drive thats being shoved into our throats that's messing up. Icloud drive has hijacked my entire desktop, feels like i dont own any files anymore and i am at the mercy of icloude drive. Can't even move files out of it since they take 1000000000 years to move.

I got tired of waiting for this to be fixed and bought a 4TB SSD to put my user folders on; that way I could format it as APFS and it would fix the issue of not being able to turn on iCloud Drive.

Well…this has not gone well at all. Trying to house the user folders on the external SSD created absolute mayhem with permissions problems that could not be fixed (I'd correct the permissions and minutes later nothing would remember their settings…so I'd look at the permissions and they had all spontaneously changed again), all kinds of icon weirdness, and too many strange issues to list. I wiped and reinstalled the OS (Sonoma) about 4 times.

Found another thread talking about using an external SSD for the user home folders…and I've now been told that it simply can’t be done! Apparently the functionality for changing the path to user home folders that Apple provides in the Advanced Options in Users and Groups is badly broken and isn’t expected to be fixed.

So guys - if any of you are hoping to house your user folders anywhere other than the internal drive, let me spare you some pain and time. A level 10 dude told me that it didn’t matter what my four family members used the computer for or what our software requirements are, I shouldn’t have any problem putting all of us on the 1TB internal. He also told me that just because Apple provided the ability and option to move home folder paths from the MacOS GUI, we shouldn’t expect it to work properly, it doesn’t mean that Apple approves or supports using the feature, nor should they have to warn us that if we do it, it would be bad. 😳

Try deleting the Finder preference File.

In Finder, press Command-Shift-G and paste this

~/Library/Preferences/

Delete: com.apple.finder.plist

Drag the file to the trash, then force-quit the Finder, or log out and back in.

Force Quit: Click Apple logo in upper left menu or key ‘option + command + esc’