Finder not responding

I Have the same problem. Then unexpectedly a window popped up asking if I wanted to empty the trash which

I did. I was surprised to learn that I had 6000+ items in the trash bin. After that my finder works again. Only

difference is that I cannot get the Kodi symbol onto my desktop although I still have Kodi on my file which

I can open and watch movie. None of my files have been erased.

if none of the other non-terminal steps work (they didn't for me because I couldn't even access the Finder application), then Terminal is the way to go. But if you don't want to go about removing files from terminal, you can just move them (so they are still accessible in case something goes wrong). This worked for me to fix the issue.

mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist ~/Desktop/preferences

This moves the plist file to a file called preferences on the desktop, so I can always restore it if necessary.

It still didn't work immediately after a full shut down and restart, but I relaunched finder a few times, made sure that under "Options" it was set to "This Desktop", and then eventually a menu appeared that allowed me to "Go to" a specific folder. About 5-10 minutes after going through those steps, the finder folders and all my files finally reappeared. I'm not sure if the last few steps have anything to do with it or if it was just a matter of waiting...but you might want to try all that just in case.

Hit command-option-escape; select Finder from the list and click 'Relaunch'. This should clear it up, but you may want to restart anyway. Rather than actually choosing restart you should shut down and then boot up again (it does make a difference).

If it doesn't, try to reboot your Mac. You will probably find you can't, so hold the power button down until it shuts down, then boot up again.

Next step: shut down (force it if necessary);hold the shift key down and boot up. It will take a long time to boot - quite some minutes - as it will run a disk check. See if when it finally boots you have the Finder back.

Next next step: insert your installation disk. Shut down and then reboot while holding the C key down until it's obvious it's starting from the disk (you will hear the drive going and the boot up will be slow). Don't start an installation: from the 'Utilities' menu choose 'Disk Utility' and then click 'Repair disk' (this essentially repeats what you've just done, but worth trying). Then click 'Repair Permissions'. You will probably get a lot of 'errors' - ignore them. At the end it should say 'Permissions repair complete' and as long as it says that it's done it OK.

Reboot - hold the mouse key down to eject the install disk.

If none of this works, the final step is to start from the install disk as before and reinstall the system.

i had a same problem..but now i solved that 🙂

The problem happened first when i open my downloads folder..

i tried all the way mentioned in net...force quit,shut down, and safe boot but problem not solved

Bt. I'm sure about that the problem because of a file inside my downloads folder...so i tried to delete ...normal way its not possible because finder having trouble.

so i used terminal 🙂

search 'terminal' on your spotlight

i used two com ant to delete all file in downloads folder..coments are listed below..use your user name ther

rm /Users/yourusername/Downloads

sudo rm -r /Users/yourusername/Downloads

and now i'm happy after this problem is solved 🙂

NB--in my condition problem happened first when i open my downloads folder, u delete the file because of which file u had problem

Finder was not responding in my iMac and I was not able to log off.

After almost one day of trials I right clicked Finder in the menu bar and then I clicked About the Finder.

The "About the Finder" window popped up with an unexpected window on it asking if I want to empty the trash.

I clicked Yes and this solved the problem. Finder is OK again.

please do NOT do this.

removing your Downloads folder can cause all sorts of other problems.

Open terminal & run these commands:

rm ~/Desktop/com.apple.finder.plist

sudo shutdown -r now

Do not do any such thing. There is no .plist file in the Desktop file. The preference file in question lives at (user)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and can be deleted manually from there if necessary, after which you should restart in the normal way. You should avoid use of the Terminal unless absolutely necessary and you know what you are doing - even the slightest mistake when using the rm command can cause disaster. Of course this question was asked four months ago so hopefully the poster has sorted it out by now.

Oh my! Thanks for noticing my typo:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

sudo shutdown -r now

I don't think it's a good idea to encourage people to use Terminal, particularly rm. The file can perfectly well be deleted by dragging it to the Trash. In any case there is little point in responding to a four-month old question.

As an example, my Finder is in no state to be normally removing files. Just trying to open/relaunch it cases it to never appear and show the spinning color wheel.

As a common search result in Google, there is point in replying to this post 🙂

I may try the Terminal method to see if removing the plist file helps, only after making a backup of course, and if not, reboot, and that will likely help. I think my problem is that I was mounting a remote share that never succeeded, or did, and Finder is just having trouble trying to communicate with it.

Here is some Terminal output:

> mount

/dev/disk1 on / (hfs, local, journaled)

devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)

map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)

map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

map -fstab on /Network/Servers (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

//user@remote/share on /Volumes/share (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by user)

> umount /Volumes/share

umount(/Volumes/share): Resource busy -- try 'diskutil unmount'

> sudo diskutil unmount /Volumes/share

Password:

Unmount failed for /Volumes/share

The Disk Utility GUI does not show this mounted remote share, and I'm not sure that it would anyway, but just checked.

I have tried the Command+Option+Esc method, just as I have been Right-Clicking the dock icon, waiting for a small delay, holding Option, and selecting Relaunch from either place, in the dialog or pop-up context menu.

One note that is interesting and consistent with my (un)mount issues is that after a relaunch, Finder will respond to a right-click more immediately, but if I try to open the program again, the hanging occurs.

You should really post a new question on this..

Anyway the problem with the finder and/or desktop freezing has been around since the beginning of OSX as the booklet for both that and Panther (that I still have) tell you to relaunch finder any time it does not look like its working.

The other problem with finder is the Spotlight indexing.

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit the application.

In Finder hold down the option/alt key while selecting the Go menu item. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer ones.