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Finder Preferences -> Sidebar

The finder sidebar is missing a few items: the home directory, documents, music, pictures and movies.


I go to:


Finder Preferences -> Sidebar


where I tick all the items.


The finder sidebar stays the same, and if I leave the sidebar preferences and return, they're unticked again!


It seems that Finder is determined not to allow me to have these in my sidebar?


Why?


I do have my user account on a separate drive, but, surely, this has been a normal thing to do for a very long time.

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 4, 2020 5:35 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 4, 2020 12:46 PM

Fustbariclation wrote:

The finder sidebar is missing a few items: the home directory, documents, music, pictures and movies.

I do have my user account on a separate drive, but, surely, this has been a normal thing to do for a very long time.


So what changed to precipatate this new behavior(?)


this would be a clue as to how to proceed forward to resolve your issue...



If you just update to Catalina verify your software is up to date—ie 10.15.3 If you stair stepped your way up using the delta update, try reinstalling the combo update on top of your existinh 10.15.3:

Combo update macOS 10.15.3 https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2030



From Recovery you can also try reinstalling the entire macOS on top of your existing macOS:

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904



It seems quite odd to have your entire user moved to an external drive—this may well be added complication using the new Cataliana. About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina



Possibly a corrupt plist. Another less drastic attempt may be to delete the Finder plist and let it rebuild:

delete the com.apple.finder.plist Found here Finder>Go>Go to Folder, copy and paste:

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


Relaunch your Finder from the >Finder>Force Quit>Finder>Relaunch


6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 4, 2020 12:46 PM in response to Fustbariclation

Fustbariclation wrote:

The finder sidebar is missing a few items: the home directory, documents, music, pictures and movies.

I do have my user account on a separate drive, but, surely, this has been a normal thing to do for a very long time.


So what changed to precipatate this new behavior(?)


this would be a clue as to how to proceed forward to resolve your issue...



If you just update to Catalina verify your software is up to date—ie 10.15.3 If you stair stepped your way up using the delta update, try reinstalling the combo update on top of your existinh 10.15.3:

Combo update macOS 10.15.3 https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2030



From Recovery you can also try reinstalling the entire macOS on top of your existing macOS:

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904



It seems quite odd to have your entire user moved to an external drive—this may well be added complication using the new Cataliana. About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina



Possibly a corrupt plist. Another less drastic attempt may be to delete the Finder plist and let it rebuild:

delete the com.apple.finder.plist Found here Finder>Go>Go to Folder, copy and paste:

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


Relaunch your Finder from the >Finder>Force Quit>Finder>Relaunch


Finder Preferences -> Sidebar

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