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Since upgrading to Lion, icons in various folders keep rearranging themselves. I arrange them manually but the arrangements don't always stick. Some folders are ok and some are not. Deleting the .DS_Store folder does not seem to help. Ideas?
I can only assume you already set the Finder preferences>View>ViewOptions>Arrange Sort By to None
Yes, I set "Sort By" to None and "Arrange By" also to None. I just rebooted and things are ok so far but that has happened before. This may not be a Lion thing as the management of icons has been flaky in the past. I will see how it goes.
Have you tried "Use as Defaults"?
Open a Finder window > View > Show View Options > Set your view preferences > Use as Defaults (at the bottom)? You can set you preferences for each view (List, Icon, etc..)
Now, whenever you use that view, it will set that Finder window to your preferences.
I've been having this problem too since upgrading to Lion - never had it before. The icons rearrange themselves alphabetically despite the settings. I've had to put them back where I want them twice in the past couple of days, and they've just rearranged themselves again - it's driving me crazy. I'll try your suggestion, Bruced, and hope it works!
Ok. Assuming that folder 1 contains folder 2 contains folder 3 and 4. It is my understanding that if I set "Use as Defaults" for folder 2 that all subfolders like folder 3 with icon view will be set to the same view options as the original folder. Is this true? Also if a subfolder like folder 4 is in list view, it will not be affected. Also true? Finally, I assume that the "Use as Defaults" does not affect folder 1 containing the folder 2. Also true? Thanks in advance.
I've had this exact same problem. It is definitely one of the many buggy problems in Lion right now. I rearranged several times. It would be OK for a while, and then they would get rearranged again. I couldn't find any way to fix it. It was one of the many reasons that I decided to throw out Lion and go back to Snow Leopard. Lion is just terrible. Of course, I won't even try to get my $29 back. ðŸ˜
At this point you have three choices: Get used to an arbitrary change you don't like (a helpful attitude for any Mac owner, LOL), wait 6 months for an upgrade and hope they fix it, or pull out Time Machine and revert to Snow Leopard.
Good luck.
No, whatever default you set the parent folder will not be applied to the subfolder; you can have different views for different folders.
The preference for that view is what 'Use as defaults' is all about (e.g My preference for Icon View is: icon size as 128x128, grid spacing max, text size 13, arrange by Name).
So whenever I choose icon view for a folder, it will use those choices as the Icon View default.
Sorry to report that 'Use as Defaults' doesn't help. My icons have rearranged themselves twice again despite setting None as the sorting default.
I have the same problem. I have a bulletin board of project cards, each card is business card size. I also have a folder on my system, that I keep in icon view. The placement of the icons mirrors the placement of the bulletin board. So when I move a card, I also move that same icon.
Now, the system is all messed up because all of the icons move. Nothing has been able to fix it. Frustrating.
Beginning with the system folder, I have set to icon view, arrange on none, sort on none and set for default all folders that contain things that I want to stay put. So far, after a couple of days, things have stayed put. I do remember that I have had similar issues in the past and with patience, the issue seemed to go away with patience. I have no clue what is happening, that is my emperical observation.
I do thing that Apple has likely changed how this all works do maybe it takes some time for things to clean up in my system. This is likely caused by upgrading an older system (OS 10.6.8) rather than a clean install and perhaps the use of older applications that may also affect things. Time will tell.
I also think Lion has a new feature, where the icons will move as you resize the window, so no of the icons get hidden.
I don't know a way to keep one folder window the same size all the time, so if the window size has changed, then the icons will likely be rearranged.
The icons are not rearranging because the window size changed (my icons are happy to be hidden off the edge of a window), they are rearranging for no discernable reason. Despite the default settings, they have just put themselves in list view (which I never use) - that's a new variation.
Same for me, many many problems despite my clean up install ðŸ˜
Snow Leopard had also many issues with 512 pixels icons and random rearranging, Apple did bad job about this.
This behavior is absolutely infuriating. If it weren't such an epic hassle, I'd revert to Snow Leopard just so that I could view my files the way I want, rather than the random way that Lion's buggy Finder wants. To the people on this page offering helpful troubleshooting suggestions, this is not a settings issue, or a permissions problem. Bad coding is the cause, and good coding in some future release of Lion will be the only cure.
When you put many new pictures in folders, (may be hundreds, not yet counted) the Finder crash, and reboot. So you lost all your finder settings.
It was the same under Snow Leopard. The only progress under Lion is, after crash, most icon still appear correct (512 pixels, but not all), under SnowLeopard most icon appeared 32x32 pixels !
Most icon come back to correct (not all) after close and reopen session. Restart seem more efficient... sometimes...
So I agree withe "unpeople" there is a real coding problem !
Come on Apple The new spluttered king of the desktop is just pathetic !
How do keep folder icons from rearranging?
