Finder's animation gone! How to restore it back?

Question

Level 1

5 points

Finder's animation gone! How to restore it back?

When I helped my friend to set up the brand new Macbook Pro, I noticed something different, her macbook finder has animation, then I checked my old macbook late 2008, there is no animation when opening folder, opening get info and so on. What's wrong?

I tried using TinkerTool to restore it but nothing happened even after I relaunched Finder. Anyone here care to help? I am missing the animation.

Please help me. Thank you before.

Macbook 13 inch late 2008 model, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 1, 2011 2:17 PM

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Answer 1

CMCSK

Level 6

11,452 points

Apr 1, 2011 2:51 PM in response to scryedz

her macbook finder has animation

What is animating in the Finder? Folders? Application?

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Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 1, 2011 3:12 PM in response to scryedz

The settings you want are in the Dock preference pane, not in Finder preferences.

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Answer 3

scryedz Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2011 12:43 PM in response to CMCSK

Yes, in example,

when you close the folder you just open, the folder will zoom back with animation, and then you can play the animation by holding shift button to make it slowly zoom back, when you create a folder there is little smooth animation.

the first time I have the macbook I saw it, but now it seems just missing.

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Answer 4

Kurt Lang

Level 9

58,116 points

Apr 2, 2011 1:51 PM in response to scryedz

Open the Terminal, copy/paste the following line into it and press Enter:

defaults write com.apple.finder AnimateWindowZoom True

Then this line:

killall Finder

Close the Terminal app.

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Answer 5

scryedz Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 5, 2011 3:17 AM in response to scryedz

Thank you for all the reply, however I've tried all your suggestions and other suggestions I found on web, but none of it was working, perhaps after all this years my macbook has accumulated with a lot of junks and probably I've to clean install the OS to resolve the problem. 🙂

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Answer 6

Kurt Lang

Level 9

58,116 points

Apr 5, 2011 6:05 AM in response to scryedz

Hmm, the Terminal command definitely should have worked.

Try this to test the OS. Create a new account and log into it. Does animation work as you expect? If no, then the OS probably needs to be reinstalled.

If yes, then something specific to your account is bad. Log back into your account, go to the Preferences folder in your account and put the file com.apple.finder.plist in the trash. Log out and log back in. Is it behaving correctly now?

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Answer 7

scryedz Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 20, 2011 11:26 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Hi Mr Kurt,

Last time I tested your way, I created a test account, and every animation is there!! but it's true when I logged back with my account, animation still missing. By the way I couldn't found the com.apple.finder.plist in preferences folder. So after long time, I chose to install Lion hoping everything will back normal but with new OS but still the animation of info panes opening and folder still missing. Any suggestion? Thank you. 😉

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Answer 8

Kurt Lang

Level 9

58,116 points

Jul 20, 2011 11:50 AM in response to scryedz

By the way I couldn't found the com.apple.finder.plist in preferences folder.

Had to have been looking in the wrong Preferences folder. You must have searched in:

/Library/Preferences/

You need to look in your account at:

/Users/your_account/Library/Preferences/

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Answer 9

scryedz Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 20, 2011 11:54 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Hey thank you so much for your suggestion, however at first I couldn't found the Library folder under my username, but finally I found it after I used TinkerTool to unlock the hidden files.

Apparently on Lion the library seems becoming a hidden file. However, after done what you told, everything working normal again. Thank you very much!! 🙂

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Answer 10

Kurt Lang

Level 9

58,116 points

Jul 20, 2011 12:05 PM in response to scryedz

You're welcome.

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Answer 11

sheni7

Level 1

5 points

Oct 24, 2012 12:19 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Upgrading to the latest version of Total finder did the trick for me.

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Answer 12

waheb09

Level 1

0 points

Sep 18, 2013 10:50 PM in response to Kurt Lang

thanks body, you saved me 😉

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Answer 13

Feb 23, 2014 12:34 AM in response to Kurt Lang

This did not work for me, but a small variation of this did work

In Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AnimateWindowZoom -bool YES
 killall Finder

If this doesn't work on it's own, you might have to do this in Terminal too:

defauts write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool NO
 killall Finder

If you want to just do both all at once, to be safe, do this in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AnimateWindowZoom -bool YES
 defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool NO
 killall Finder

All of the commands are case-sensitive. Good luck 😉

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