External drive icon keeps moving on Mac desktop in macOS 15.5 Sequoia

Hey apple_customer!

odd issue you have here, I have a few suspicions as to a fix, however if you were to plug in an external hard drive to your Mac, does it’s icon do the same?

My instinct would be to reset the Finder plist:

Close all apps, open Finder, while holding the Option key click Go > Library.

Once there you can delete any file with “com.apple.finder.plist”, another folder to check for this plist is within the Preferences folder, ByHost.

You can also check the Macintosh Library for the same files, Finder, Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences. If any Finder plists exist there, you can do the same.

Once deleted, you can restart your Mac and test. To note though you may need to adjust your Finder settings again as they may go to default, and it’s always a good idea to keep a backup!

Otherwise, it may be good to know if this occurs with other drives, or even in another user account, let us know and we’ll help any way we can buy hope that does it!

Control (right) click on your Desktop and select Show View Options

Set Stack By: and Sort By: to None

Then adjust the Icon size: smaller than the Grid spacing:

I've been having the same problem with a new Mac Mini M4 with a 32" LG 4k minter. I've tried all of the suggestions that den.thed, ibirdvat, leroydouglas and others have proposed with no success. I had my Dock on the right side of the screen and the drives across the top. When I try to adjust icon size and spacing they jump vertical after a reboot.

So I've come up with a "fix". I've created alias for each of the drives and have added special icons to them as well as the actual drives:

I've unchecked External Drives in Finder's General Settings pane. This works fine. I do have to do some mucking around if a EHD gets unmounted an I have to remount it but can use either Disk Utility or an app called EjectBar. I use it to unmount disk images for apps or video DVDs that I might use. It's not ideal but it works for me.

Just some food for thought.

At this point I recommend that you do two things.

1) Update the Mac mini to the latest macOS 15.6.1 Sequoia version.

What's new in the updates for macOS Sequoia - Apple Support

2) Send Feedback directly to Apple.

Feedback - Mac mini - Apple

Feedback - macOS - Apple

I concur with Limnos. It sounds like other stuff is getting moved to where the external drives belong, before the external drives mount and show up on the desktop.

How many other Folders, Files, App's and other stuff do you have cluttering up your desktop..?

Personally I only have Drives and Temporary Files like Screenshots on my desktop.

The Temporary stuff gets either Filed or Trashed when I done with it.

Hmm... is this Sort By > set to > None.

If so, then try clicking on Clean up

Or use Clean Up By > Kind

apple_customer wrote:

Hi den.thed,

My settings are similar to yours. They can't be identical because I have a Dell 43 " monitor and in case I lower the size of my icons to 40x40 they will look way too small.

Small works for me because the Macintosh HD, External drives and temporary Screenshots are the only things that I keep on my desktop.

I have been using 64x64 for a long time now and feel comfortable with this size. As for the others, my icon size is smaller than my grid size and my type is not size 11 like yours but I use it only one size larger at 12.

Maybe try bumping up the Grid spacing to the next notch.

apple_customer wrote:

den.thed,

It still doesn't work. Despite the changes in grid spacing and the size of the text, the drive's icon is still moving.

Hmm.. funny that the icons holds for a bit and then moves. Maybe try decreasing the Icon size a little to see if that helps.

The only other things that I can think of that might be causing the problem, is some type of third-party cleaning, optimizing or av software.

Apple has no fix issued. I just kept playing with grid spacing and icon size until finally my Mac icon and TM icon did not move. If I connect another external drive it can still impact other drive locations for some reason. Kind of frustrating.

When exactly is it moving? If it is happening between restarts then it may be related to an issue I found with windows to folders on external drives not reappearing after a restart*. The OS may be setting up your files and folders on the internal drive on the desktop first, as they were before. It remembers things on the internal drive. Then once that is done it is finding a place for your external drive but it is regarding it as something it has never seen before and putting it in a random location.

*I'd post a link to it but the Communities software is currently having issues showing us our posting history. I posted in the past 24 hours about this if you search this forum.

apple_customer wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have been experiencing a problem with Mac OS 15.5 sequoia

have found another thread discussing this issue and have tried several of the solutions they presented but not a single one has worked

Does anyone know of a solution to this problem? Has Apple release a fix for this issue?

Thank you in advance for any help you can share.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Hard drive icon keeps moving.

Not a fan of trying to play Whack-O-Mole..... and very hard to speculate on your "tried several of the solutions..."

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

apple_customer wrote:

the internal hard disk that came with my Mac computer.

I think I have tried most of the solutions I found online but not a single one has worked for me.

It really serves no practical purpose today on the Desktop— it is a carry over from the early days.

It simply takes up valuable screen real estate— you can remove it easily enough...