I updated to OSX 10.9.3 and lost my Users Folder. What Happened?

10.9.3 has changed the Users folder to be hidden

You should be able to go there still with the Go to Folder in the Go pull down menu of Finder

It's been flagged as invisible. Open the AppleScript Editor in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and run:

do shell script "chflags nohidden /Users/" with administrator privileges

You may then need to relaunch the Finder. The script needs to be run with each restart.

(106749)

I believe that will only work until the next reboot when it will reset it to hidden again.

This bug has shown up on some Mac's but not all. I have friends who've seen it but I updated 4 macs yesterday and didn't see it on any (one of the macs got corrupted finder.plist files but only one).

I've seen this solution work for several others....

Do a PRAM reset

reboot and at the chime hold the command-option-R-P keys, wait until the screen flashes twice

Do a recovery boot

reboot and at the chime hold the Command-R keys....this will boot into recovery mode

In recovery repair permissions

After selecting a language, a menu of choices open up, select disk utility and repair permissions on your boot drive (normally called Macintosh HD), close disk utility and open terminal (from top menu)

In terminal type the following commands

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD (or whatever your boot drive is named)

chmod 755 Users

chmod 755 Users/Shared

chflags nohidden Users

chflags nohidden Users/Shared

Now just restart your Mac as normal

Good luck

It is not a bug. It is a feature.

I believe that will only work until the next reboot when it will reset it to hidden again.

It's been tested to be persistant by a friend of mine. That is why it seems convoluted.

Allan Eckert wrote:

It is not a bug. It is a feature.

I believe that will only work until the next reboot when it will reset it to hidden again.

It's not a feature, Allen, it's a bug in the updater, one that does not affect all systems. It was, I believe, brought up in the seed forum before Apple closed it down after the official release. Apple most certainly would not by design hide the Users folder since that would prevent access to the Shared folder.

Perhaps you were thinking of the user's Library folder, which is now hidden by default?

Regards.

What I did as a workaround was in Finder/Go/Go to Folder type Users. That made the User folder visible. I created an alias of the folder and put it in Finder's Sidebar. Repeated procedure typing Shared, making an alias, and putting it in the Sidebar. Restarted and the alias links will take you there even after a restart.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

I've played with this and find my mac is involved. When I said earlier that I updated 4 macs without this issue, I always do a PRAM reset as just a matter of procedure and doing so turns off find my Mac. I enabled Find my Mac on one of the 4 Macs a few minutes ago and the problem occurred.

So what I said was a persistant fix is only true if you leave find my mac disabled.

Hi Lefthand:

I zapped the PRAM and repaired my permissions as you instructed, but Terminal (which I don't use a lot and know little about logging into) won't let me get past the login dialog (gives the date and the name of my login hard drive and then my user name with a $ sign after it). How do I get past this beginning dialog to put in the commands as listed on your solution sheet so I can make my Users Folder appear again? After I have typed in what you have instructed, what keys do I press to make the commands execute?

So far, I can only get at the Users folder by choosing Go from the Finder Menu, and then selecting Go To Folder and typing in Users. It also appears in some of the other views (version 3). Then it finds the Invisible Users folder with my username in it, but the Shared Folder within Users seems to be comepletely gone. Thank gawd I regularly back up with Time Machine and can restore the Shared folder if and when I can sort out making the Users fold not be invisible and reappear.

Use the AppleScript I posted above. If needed, add Shared/ right after /Users/ in it.

(106793)

Apple has just released an update to iTunes (11.2.1) that fixes this issue. It was some kind of interaction between iTunes and Find My Mac.

OS X Mavericks: Users folder isn't visible after updating to iTunes 11.2

lkrupp:

God bless you! Sometimes the simplest method is the best. I just installed the iTunes 11.2.1 hasty fix, and my Users folder is back and happily staring back at me on two out of my three computers. On my Desktop (#3, with dual hard drives), I tried the original Lefthand888 solution of zapping the PRAM, cleaning up the permissions under Recovery mode, but got locked out of the Terminal application (which for some reason had been made so secured by the Apple-created software bug that it would not recognize my Admin pwd to make the code fixes). File Matey shareware wouldn't work on the WYSIWYG side either (one of the few times it has failed me), because the bug was so embedded into the core system software update (OSX 10.9.2 with iTunes 11.2.0) that the security protocols prevented it from working. Hopefully, my attempts to fix will not prevent the iTunes 11.2.1 patch from working after I tried the other methods first.