Can’t Access Finder? Fix it from Terminal in Mac OS X Remember to adjust any customizations you had set to preferences again as they will have been lost. So restart the Mac, and MacOS / Mac OS X will boot as usual, and the Finder preference file will automatically regenerate itself. Yes, you should reboot the entire Mac, because simply restarting Finder process itself does not always seem to do help to resolve the issues experienced.

Close the user Preferences folder and go to the  Apple menu and select “Restart” to reboot the Mac.

Locate the file named “” and move it to the Trash, or move it to the Desktop if you want to be extra cautious.

From the Finder, hit Command+Shift+G and go to the following path:.

If Finder is working enough that you can use it, you’ll be able to quickly move or trash the Finder plist file:

How to Fix Finder Problems by Trashing Finder Preferences in Mac OS X Keep in mind that ditching the Finder plist file will cause Finder preferences to be lost, so you would need to re-enable things like file extension visibility, custom icon spacing and text size, and other changes you made to Finder preferences.Īlways start and complete a back up of your Mac with Time Machine before modifying any component of Mac OS X, even just a simple regenerable plist file. We’ll cover two ways to accomplish this, one using the Finder itself (assuming you can use it and the process is not stuck in an unresponsive cycle), and we’ll also how to resolve the Finder issues with Terminal, which is suitable if you’re unable to access the Finder in Mac OS X at all. Most of the time, ditching the Finder plist file and rebooting the Mac is sufficient to resolve any Finder troubles in MacOS or Mac OS X, especially if the Finder issues appeared after a software update of some sort.

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