How do I get my downloads back on the sidebar of my finder?

Have you gone to Finder menu > Settings (or Preferences in older systems) > Sidebar (at top of Settings/Preferences) window and put a check mark in front of Downloads in the Favorites section?

It should be where dialabrain showed you, but you can also do this:

Press Command-Shift-H to go to your home folder;

Locate Downloads in there;

Drag the Downloads folder to the Sidebar.

Go to settings in the Finder and Sidebar and look down until you see it and check it off.

gizella wrote:

I can no longer find my downloads file in the file sidebar, or in the favorites. How do i reinstate it?

Finder>Settings>Sidebar

You don't see this?