Lion Keeps Re-arranging my Folders

What's the best/fastest way to report this bug to Apple?

Ok, this is not a "fix" - only Apple can provide that. However, I have discovered a viable work-around that doesn't stop the windows re-arranging themselves in the first place, but makes it a whole lot quicker and easier to restore all your windows to exactly the way you had them before the problem occurs.

There is a $15 shareware program called Finder Window Manager (FWM) that has been around for a while. What it does is let you create any number of "window sets" and them restore them from a drop-down menu should any windows in the set become re-arranged for any reason.

Once the program is running (and I recommend making it a "Login item") you just have to set your windows to the exact way you want to view them, with the proviso that you cannot close any of them until they are all ready - so you may have a very cluttered desktop while you're conducting this first step. Once all the windows are ready, you save them as a 'set', which is then listed in FWM's drop-down menu in the Finder menu bar.

If Lion re-sets any windows in the relevant set, you just go to the drop-down menu and select to restore the set. All the windows in that set are re-opened at once and configured in the exact way you saved them. Although you are then left with all your restored windows open at once, I just press command-w as many times as required to close them all, which only takes a few seconds.

And there you have it. Instead of painstakingly re-setting all your windows manually, you have the peace of mind that they are always saved and ready to restore within a few seconds.

If you have a very large number of windows that Lion re-arranges, you can create multiple sets which can be restored separately fom the FWM drop-down menu. For example, I have a set that fixes all my folders in the root directory of my hard drive, and a second set to restore folders in my User account and all the folders on my desktop, which Lion seems to re-arrange more frequently than the others.

Note that because this program fixes folder views by restoring and re-opening all the windows, it will not fix the desktop icon re-arrangement bug. For that problem there is a program called DIM (version 2.0.2) which works perfectly for me.

Lastly, FWM seems to have a feature that can monitor all your open windows in real-time and keep them fixed to the view settings that you have saved.

Well, these two programs have taken the pain out of the desktop and folder re-arrangement bug and have made life tolerable for me while I wait for Apple to fix the underlying problems in the Finder.

I hope this advice is helpful. 😀

I stopped syncing iDisk in Mobile Me and that fixed the problem.

Hmmm, I don't use iDIsk in Mobile Me: and I still suffer under the random re-arrangement.

I do however use "DropBox" for the synching of a couple of documents.

I wonder: do we have any users that use neither iDisk nor DropBox, and still suffer the re-arrangement?

I don't use either iDisk or DropBox.

I observe rearrangement of icons everytime I perform a file operation not in icon mode [for eaxple searching for a fiel in list mode in the Mail attach window]. Others say it happens everytime they save a file.

Also,

It's importnat to note that the bug affects all the folder desplay options (not just icon position)

-- icon size

-- background color

-- always display in list mode

etc.

Janet

I don't use iDisk syncing, and I turned off DropBox and rebooted.

My main folder is set for "Snap to Grid" and "Arrange by None."

I set a group of folders in a particular arrangement, and closed the window. Opening and closing that window several times had no effect.

I then opened Word, saved a one-word document (.docx), closed it, selected "Open," opened the same document, closed it, and quit Word.

When I opened my main folder, everything was completely scrambled. Not just out of order but still in a grid -- icons on top of icons, icons outside the oversized window pane. Basically just a jumble.

View Options hadn't changed. They just weren't working.

P.S. But everything on my Desktop stays in place.

My "solution" of turning off iDisk syncing lasted a few days, but alas my icons are rearranging again. Something in iDisk syncing must trigger the change but must not be exclusive in doing it. Waiting for Apple to fix this hideous bug, I guess. Worst experience with an OS upgrade for me, by far. Lots of things broken, Apple too busy trying to sell iPhones to get OS updates out, it seems. Very frustrating for a long time Apple user.

I have the same problem, and this is very irritating. As I do a lot of art/photo works, it is far better to display the folders with a dark grey background, but this is near impossible in Lion. The only choice is to have the folder view as 'none' in which case the folders are all jumpled up, or view by any other option, i.e 'display by date', which leaves the background colour option shaded and unavailable.

Did today's update improve anything? I am also getting my folders rearranged periodically with no solution in sight...

SunnyvalePGA wrote:

What's the best/fastest way to report this bug to Apple?

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

arctophile wrote:

Did today's update improve anything? I am also getting my folders rearranged periodically with no solution in sight...

Not for me, View Options are still the random mess it was pre-10.7.2, just that now I have the ability to backup the random mess to the cloud .... yay!

I hate to say (to billearl) I told you so but, well you know the routine

MaestroCreep3k wrote:

Not for me, View Options are still the random mess it was pre-10.7.2, just that now I have the ability to backup the random mess to the cloud .... yay!

I hate to say (to billearl) I told you so but, well you know the routine

Well, that's disappointing 😟. I've been beta-testing 10.7.2 for the last six weeks, and this problem completely stopped for me with the first 10.7.2 build I tried. So it looked to me like 10.7.2 would be the answer for others too.

and I was honestly hoping to be wrong

you said that it went away for you with the first build you tried ... did it stay fixed with later builds for you as well?

MaestroCreep3k wrote:

you said that it went away for you with the first build you tried ... did it stay fixed with later builds for you as well?

Yes, totally fixed on my system. It's been fine for the last six weeks, including now.

Prior to that, the problem wasn't quite as severe on my machine as some people reported, but many folders frequently forgot their settings and my desktop was messed up several times, enough to be extremely annoying.