Mac abruptly lost the Finder, file paths, and drives

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Level 1

4 points

Mac abruptly lost the Finder, file paths, and drives

So... i have never even heard of something like this happening but I was across the room w somethin on youtube, and somethin moved on the bottom of the screen so I walked over and saw right just baaarely the second my file explorer icon disappeared from the bottom bar...and then i realized i could see any non icloud file paths were vanishing... I didnt know what was goin on so i snagged as much of my capstone project as could before everything was just gone. I don't understand . I booted to try and fix it in disk utility but literally the only things showing are the macintosh HD volumes then the macintosh hd and data under. Ill throw a pic in but disk utility shows NOTHING internal above volumes??? it was like my whole computer was slipping away on screen and I just had to watch. I have no idea what even happened or how it could have without me screwing with it?????????? I SUPER cant afford this in terms of time OR school is there anything I can do here? I am definitely not doing anything yet bc it says my data is still there and my capstone is backed up of course but the last one I backed up was still about a month ago.

Sorry for typos guys I've been doing this since 12:15 and its 4:40 am. literally any help is SO appreciated.

[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: File explorer icon spontaneously vanished...then slowly all the file paths vanished, then all main drives vanished...all of them....kinda screwed as a comp eng senior w/o a computer

MacBook Pro 14″

Posted on Aug 29, 2025 02:48 AM

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Answer 1

TheLittles

Level 10

201,479 points

Aug 29, 2025 02:58 AM in response to spookywagons

"File explorer icon spontaneously vanished...then slowly all the file paths vanished, then all main drives vanished...all of them....kinda screwed as a comp eng senior w/o a computer"

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Getting Missing GUI Items Back:

A. Use First Aid:

Select each volume, one-at-a-time, and run First Aid for each.

Screenshot:

B. Reinstall the macOS:

Nothing would be lost. It's just that misplaced items would be placed back to where they should be and corrupt system files would be replaced by clean files. Go Here: Reinstall macOS - Apple Support. To prevent data loss, be sure to back up your Mac with Time Machine, prior to the reinstall. IF you cannot get online through WiFi, then you may need an Ethernet connection. This may be the adapter you need: Belkin USB-C to 2.5Gb Ethernet Adapter - Apple

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

66,710 points

Aug 29, 2025 08:19 AM in response to spookywagons

spookywagons wrote:

I booted to try and fix it in disk utility but literally the only things showing are the macintosh HD volumes then the macintosh hd and data under. Ill throw a pic in but disk utility shows NOTHING internal above volumes???

Those pictures all look perfectly normal, although I do not see the "update" volume/snapshot which is usually a subsection of the "Macintosh HD" item (second one, usually has a drop down arrow to show it), but it may depend on the version of macOS being used (full system and/or Recovery Mode).

By default Disk Utility hides the physical drives and APFS Containers from view. Within Disk Utility click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives and hidden APFS Containers appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.

If you have an M-series Mac, then there are some partitions/Containers that will not be displayed in Disk Utility because they are necessary for basic functions, such as booting into any mode. Those items cannot be modified even if you could see them.

You can try booting into Safe Mode to see if that is possible. If something rogue was occurring, then this should prevent it from running at boot/log in.

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