Background is not visible in MacBook Air

Macbook air M3 2024


Background is not showing and almost all options in system settings are gone.

I've tried safe mode reboot and re-downloading OS but still not working.

Anything would help :'(




[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: background not showing and system setting options are almost all gone

Posted on Jun 13, 2025 08:33 AM

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3 replies

Jun 15, 2025 12:51 PM in response to juding_2

Ok, both of those look normal.


Try booting into Safe Mode to see if the issue still exists.


Try running Disk Utility First Aid on the hidden Container. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the hidden Container appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Even if the First Aid summary says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed. If there are errors, then run First Aid again until the errors are gone. If after several scans the errors remain, then you will need to run First Aid while booted into Recovery Mode.


Unless someone else has a better idea, I think the next easiest option would be to restore (aka "Migrate") your home user folder from a Time Machine backup assuming you have enough Free storage space on your internal drive. This will require either having Migration Assistant delete the current user account (it can be retained for the data), or by renaming the account you are migrating from backup. Of course you will need to restore from a backup made before this issue occurred.


I'm not an expert with Time Machine so if you have questions about it, then I will need to leave it to other more experienced contributors to assist you.

Jun 14, 2025 11:04 AM in response to juding_2

Launch the Terminal app and run the following commands so I can view the permissions associated with the home Library folder and the "~/Library/Preferences" folder as well (best to copy & paste it):

sudo  ls  -hled@  ~/Library


sudo  ls  -hled@  ~/Library/Preferences


These commands will prompt you for your admin user password. Nothing will appear on the screen as you type the password. Press the "Return" key to submit the password. Post the complete results here. I suspect you have a permissions issue since I have seen it occur several times with my organization's Macs and even a couple of posts on this forum. These commands will show me the permissions associated with those two folders.


This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Background is not visible in MacBook Air

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