My folder icons have disappeared from my MacBook Air desktop and in Finder.

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Level 1

5 points

My folder icons have disappeared from my MacBook Air desktop and in Finder.

The folder icons have vanished from my macbook air. The titles are still there and you can double-click them to open, but not on the space above where the icon should be. New folders have the same problem.

I didn't notice what i'd done recently when the folders started to disappear, but imagine I probably downloaded a software update or similar. I've tried a restart and making sure all software is up to date. My history is mainly on PCs so I'm not certain how best to tackle this. I saw cache emptying mentioned on some fora, but mine has very little and nothing larger than 1MB, so not sure if that will help?

I'm using OS X 10.9.5 and would rather not upgrade to Yosemite as I prefer how Mavericks is set up.

Thanks for any advice.

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), 1.3 GHz processor, 4GB RAM.

Posted on Apr 27, 2015 2:28 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

dianeoforegon

Level 5

7,287 points

Apr 27, 2015 4:33 PM in response to Scramble6

Click in a Finder window.

Under View in the Menu bar, select Show View Options (Command J)

Make sure Show icons is selected.

If you click on the Desktop while the view options window is active, it will change to desktop preferences.

If you are looking for your drives, check your Finder Preferences.

Under Finder in the Menu bar, select Preferences > General

Check items you want to view.

Next click on Sidebar and check items for Sidebar.

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Answer 2

Scramble6 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 28, 2015 8:45 AM in response to dianeoforegon

Thanks v much for the advice; just tried to do it but unfortunately my 'view options' menus for both finder and desktop only have two tick boxes - "show item info" and "show icon preview". I should have said that I do have icons still for the Hard Disk and documents themselves are unaffected, just the folders... a bit mysterious!

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Apr 28, 2015 11:51 AM in response to Scramble6

Do a backup.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.desktop.plist. Move the .plists to your desktop.

Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plists from the desktop.

If the same, return the .plists to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 4

Scramble6 Author

Level 1

5 points

May 10, 2015 2:32 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks very much for the advice; i tried these steps but unfortunately it didn't seem to correct the issue following restart, so i put the .plists back again.

Thanks again though.

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

May 11, 2015 10:00 AM in response to Scramble6

You are welcome. Would you post a screen shot so people can see what you are seeing? Make sure you cover any personal information using Preview. Post the screen shot in a Reply using the camera icon or you can drag the screen shot into a reply. Copy and paste doesn't work.

Screen shots

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