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How do I remove folder action for folder that doesn't exist?

I set up a folder action to monitor a folder on a PC server. This server no longer exists but the folder action is still trying to monitor it. When I start the Folder Actions Setup it looks for that folder and cannot find it, throws an error and then tries to find the folder again, it does this indefinetly and I cannot open the Folder Action Setup util to delete the folder in question. I have deleted the plist files com.apple.folderactions.plist and com.apple.folderactionsetup.plist and I cannot

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on May 15, 2011 10:26 PM

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15 replies

May 16, 2011 12:38 PM in response to johnfromerie

Did you restart the computer? If not there may still be a process running. You can look for the process in Activity Monitor as well as kill it using AM. It's also possible that installing a folder action also installs a launch agent or daemon, so check inside those folders in the /Library/ folder and the /Home/Library/ folder to see if one is there that is associated with your old folder action.


Unfortunately, the normal way of uninstalling a folder action requires the old folder to which that action was attached. I'm not sure just what OS X does when it creates and attaches a new folder action, so you may need to hunt around to find out if there are remaining pieces of it that still need to be removed. A good search tool for this is Easy Find - MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.

May 16, 2011 8:38 PM in response to johnfromerie

Wow - Thanks for all your replies! This was my first post to the support community so I am really pleased with the response!

I actually managed to fix this an hour ago by being stubborn.


I noticed that I managed to change the pane in focus in the Folder Actions Setup tool and therefore just clicked hundreds of times on the delete button and then hundreds of times on the OK button, all the while clicking on the OK button on the error message. After about 3 hours (told you I was stubborn!) of this it eventually deleted the folder!


Thanks for the ideas especially to Kappy - I am sorry I wont be able to try out any of these.

May 17, 2011 8:24 AM in response to johnfromerie

This is what I am up against (maybe this doesn't make sense). There must be a file somewhere within the operating system that describes all the folders to which folder actions are attached to. If there were no such file, then removing the directory would correspondingly remove the folder action (but it doesn't work that way).


Does anybody know whether (and where) this mystery file exists?

How do I remove folder action for folder that doesn't exist?

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