The Finder is one of the most crucial applications on your Mac (in windows we call it File Explorer) because it helps you to find and organize your documents, media, folders, and other items. Moreover, the Finder is always running on your Mac. So I hope you all realize how important the Finder is for Mac. Recently a lot of people are facing this problem. The Finder app freezes and is not responding. Then what do we do? Not an issue, in this article, we’ll address this problem. So scroll down the page and see what’s inside.
Quit & Relaunch Finder
When your Finder becomes unresponsive or freezes, the first thing we do is quit and relaunch it. To do that,
- Tap on Apple Logo at the top left corner.
- Next tap the Force Quit option.
- Then select the Finder option from Force Quit Applications.
- Now click the Relaunch option and again confirm the action click Relaunch. That’s it.
Quit Finder from Activity Monitor
If the above solution doesn’t help, then try this solution that Quit Finder at Activity Monitor. For that,
- Open LaunchPad and find the Activity Monitor on your Mac and open it.
- In Activity Monitor, many processes run inside.
- Now find and select the Finder process.
- On that same page, click X in the upper left corner.
- Now tap the Force Quit button. That’s it.
Log out & Log in to your user account
If it still doesn’t work, then try to log out and again log in back into your Mac. This will help to kill all running processes and start them back when you log in. For that,
- Tap on Apple Logo at the top left corner.
- Next tap the Log Out admin option.
- Then enter the admin password and log in.
Turn off and again Turn on your Mac
Most of the problems were solved by this solution. Because this will forcefully remove some temporary problem with the Finder. So try this one.
- Tap the Apple Logo at the top left corner.
- Next tap the Log Out User option.
- Then press the Shutdown button.
- Disconnect all the power cables if you are connected.
- And wait for a few minutes & again power on your Mac and Log in again.
Delete all Corrupted Files
The Finder plist file can become corrupted at any time. It should be removed. Using the Terminal App, you can delete such files. To do that,
- Find the Terminal App on your Mac and tap it.
- Enter the following command to remove such files: rm~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
- Now press Enter on your Mac.
- Then Restart your Mac.
Clear Storage
Make sure you have at least 5GB of space on your Mac because this may cause the Finder to become unresponsive. So you need to maintain your storage frequently. And also remember to clean up your trash.
Remove Doubtable Third-Party Apps
Sometimes third-party apps conflict with the Finder and cause some issues on your Mac. So, kindly choose and remove those apps. To do that,
- Tap Finder on your Mac.
- And Click the Application option.
- On that page, select the List icon at the upper.
- Right-click on the doubtable third-party apps and Move to Trash.
- Go to Trash on your Mac and give the Empty Trash.
- Then Restart your Mac and Relaunch Finder.
Reset to Factory settings
If none of the other options work, consider resetting your Mac to factory settings. This is the final way to get the Finder working again. This method erases all files on your Mac, so make sure to back up and save all important files on an external hard drive before using it.
- Tap Apple Logo on your Mac.
- Tap the Restart option.
- When your Mac gets Power on, press and holds the Command+R button until you see the Apple Logo.
- Now select the Disk Utility option and tap the Continue button.
- Then click the Macintosh HD option and tap the Erase icon.
- Now choose the format as Mac OS Extended or APFS and then click on the Erase button.
- Then Leave from Disk Utility and select Reinstall macOS from the macOS utility menu.
I hope that this post will help you in resolving the unresponsiveness of Finder. If you have any questions or suggestions then leave them in the comment area. Thank you for your continued support of iPhonetopics.com.
