User profile for user: dieselfish
dieselfish Author
User level: Level 1
24 points

File Extensions are reappearing after iCloud sync

Hi. I have file extensions hidden in Finder. If I edit a file and save, after a while, the file extension appears in Finder, and I have to re-hide it via the info pane for the file. It seems to happen when the file is synced with iCloud, and has been downloaded on my other macOS device.


The file extension remains hidden until I edit the file again.


The behaviour is the same on both Mac mini 2023 and MacBook Air 2024, file extensions are visible on both machines, regardless of which machine has edited the file. Both running Sequoia 15.4. It's been going on for a while, not just the latest update.


Seems to happen with any file type, certainly I've seen it on .rft, .pages, .numbers...



Mac mini, macOS 15.4

Posted on Apr 3, 2025 9:58 AM

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User profile for user: dieselfish
dieselfish Author
User level: Level 1
24 points

Posted on Apr 5, 2025 10:14 AM

Just a quick update if anyone's interested.


I raised this with Apple Support and was escalated to the senior support techs in Ireland. They can replicate this problem so it's been passed back to Apple as a "glitch". Clearly not keen on the word "bug".


For clarity, here's a little more detail. Mac A and Mac B are both signed in to the same Apple account, and share files via iCloud. file extensions are hidden on both machines.


Open a file on Mac A, edit and save. If that file is highlighted in Finder on Mac B, everything behaves fine. As advertised.


But if the file is not highlighted in Finder on Mac B, when the edited is downloaded to Mac B, the file extension for that file is now not hidden.


Hiding the file extension in the file info (command+i or Get info) on either machine will persist until the next edit.


This would appear to be a bug in macOS Sequoia 15.4 (and probably earlier though am not certain when I first noticed it, but I think it pre-dates 15.4 update).


It's been documented (screen recordings) and Apple Support are raising it with the engineers. Looks like it's live with it and await a fix in an update.

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User profile for user: dieselfish
dieselfish Author
User level: Level 1
24 points

Apr 5, 2025 10:14 AM in response to dieselfish

Just a quick update if anyone's interested.


I raised this with Apple Support and was escalated to the senior support techs in Ireland. They can replicate this problem so it's been passed back to Apple as a "glitch". Clearly not keen on the word "bug".


For clarity, here's a little more detail. Mac A and Mac B are both signed in to the same Apple account, and share files via iCloud. file extensions are hidden on both machines.


Open a file on Mac A, edit and save. If that file is highlighted in Finder on Mac B, everything behaves fine. As advertised.


But if the file is not highlighted in Finder on Mac B, when the edited is downloaded to Mac B, the file extension for that file is now not hidden.


Hiding the file extension in the file info (command+i or Get info) on either machine will persist until the next edit.


This would appear to be a bug in macOS Sequoia 15.4 (and probably earlier though am not certain when I first noticed it, but I think it pre-dates 15.4 update).


It's been documented (screen recordings) and Apple Support are raising it with the engineers. Looks like it's live with it and await a fix in an update.

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User profile for user: fantaisie-impromptu
fantaisie-impromptu
User level: Level 1
33 points

Apr 17, 2025 10:15 AM in response to dieselfish

Someone else in the forums said they were experiencing this issue or similar with macOS Ventura. One thing that I did find that helped (me at least) was hiding the file extensions for numbers and pages (since those seem to be the only files affected (for me at least), and then reindexing spotlight: Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support This didn't solve the problem, but it seemed to have helped it become less frequent. I hate this bug because the extension counts towards alphabetical order and messes up my lists.

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File Extensions are reappearing after iCloud sync

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