How to recover Finder window configuration. All Finder windows have reset themselves to be open to the same folder

Question

Level 1

27 points

How to recover Finder window configuration. All Finder windows have reset themselves to be open to the same folder

I want to know is how to restore the Finder configuration. There must be a file somewhere that I can restore from Time Machine that will restore the window configuration from an earlier backup.

Finder has once again changed the content of all its windows. Every Finder window is supposed to show the contents of a folder or location. Each Finder window can show the content of different folders. I had 55 Finder windows open across 10 desktops. They were each showing different folders. Today when I woke up they are all showing one of two locations: either my home directory or the location representing my computer. What happened? How can I get back to the folder structure I had yesterday?

The placement of the folders is unchanged, just their target directory.

Finder is flakey like this. Here's a post from the past with a similar issue: Restarting MacOS sometimes causes desktop… - Apple Community

I'd say this happens every couple of months. It's always a surprise to me, I never see it coming and can't associate it with any cause, it's never a result of a crash or kernal panic.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6, iMac 27"

iMac 27″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Dec 15, 2022 9:00 AM

Reply

Answer 1

MBonnice Author

Level 1

27 points

Dec 16, 2022 5:14 PM in response to MBonnice

The information is in ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.finder.savedstate. Once my windows are to my liking I'll copy that folder to somewhere safe. If something goes wrong, I'll use an administrator account and copy that safe folder back to ~/Library/Saved Application State.

Reply

Answer 2

Dec 15, 2022 9:31 AM in response to MBonnice

That is unexpected, but I have to say that your workflow is very unusual. I tend to have lots of windows, but I don't think I had more than, maybe, 15 or 20 windows open at the same time. Using the Sidebar to store frequently accessed locations make it very easy to switch from one folder to another without having to look for them ten Spaces away... but that is me.

I don't think that there is a way to "restore" that particular organization.

If this is important for your workflow, maybe you can make a little script using, e.g., Automator, to create many windows and select the desired folder for each one. I don't know if one can also select a particular Space, though.

Reply

Answer 3

MBonnice Author

Level 1

27 points

Dec 15, 2022 10:49 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

People always tell me that what I do is unusual, however unless this is the cause of folder windows suddenly mis-remembering what they were pointing to then I'll keep this technique. I have only three or four Finder windows in each desktop so there's very little clutter.

When this happens, within in the desktops the folders are in the right location, but they don't point to the right folder nor do they show the right view (icons, list, columns or gallery).

It's easy to switch to ten spaces away - push up on the track pad with three fingers then all the desktops show up on the top of the screen. Then I can pick the one I want.

There must be a Finder configuration file, somewhere that is not publicly documented. I've tried to find it but I haven't figured out the trick. If I found it and saved it, I might need to use Safe Mode to restore it (though I'm not sure) but that would be OK since it saves me trouble.

Reply

How to recover Finder window configuration. All Finder windows have reset themselves to be open to the same folder

Similar questions