"Media" has disappeared from the sidebar

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Yesterday, the sidebar panel in Finder lost its familiar look. "Places" had vanished from the sidebar, and it has taken the Iphoto icon with it. I can't find a way to restore them to the sidebar (I've tried Preferences without success).

It makes loading images into programmes (which allow me to browse Iphoto) much more complicated.

Any idea how I can get them back?

BTW: I'm using Mountain Lion (OS X v10.8.3) and I've searched this and other forums for the answer. Apologies if this has been discussed already.
 
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First thing I would do is login under a different user account.

If everything looks normal, I'd look for a plist file to delete from the regular account.

com.apple.sidebarlists.plist might be a good candidate, or com.apple.finder.plist

Files are in ~/Library/Preferences
 
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Thanks for the advice, ToMACsh.

I logged in as a different user - but the sidebar is the same as under my log in.
So I deleted the plist files as you suggested and rebooted but it still hasn't made a difference.

I'd be grateful for any further suggestions.

John
 
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All I can think of is to reinstall your current version of OSX, or if you didn't do the latest update, do it.
Your files will not be affected. If that sounds too drastic, wait for a real expert to respond, or to second that approach.
 
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Im lost. Do you mean in the finder SideBar where it says Favourites, Shared, and Devices like in this image ??



If you had iPhoto there I'm not sure how, as you can't put iPhoto or any Application for that matter in the SideBar of Finder . . .

If this isn't what your talking about please explain and images always help, because I'm confused ?!?!

Cheers
 
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Sorry, if I haven't explained myself very well. I don't know if I understand myself! Here's what's happening (or rather, what's not happening):

First thing to say is that its Media that's gone from the Finder, not Places as I said.

Until a couple of days ago, I had a Media panel in the Finder sidebar. Its principal use (to me) was to in certain programs - like Fotomagico, Blurb etc - which allow me to browse my sidebar and load images from iPhoto. That is: When I scrolled down the sidebar, I clicked on the Images icon, from where I could load images or albums from iPhoto into the programs. With the disappearance of the icon, I can't do that - and Iphoto is grayed out in those programs. And Finder Preferences invites me to select from Favorites, Shared and Devices only.

Last night, after searching online for a solution - I had a look in iPhoto Manager and saw that two of my libraries are in red font, with "iPhoto Libraries archives cannot be found" beside them.

I also noticed that, when I right click on the iPhoto icon in the dock, I seem to have duplicate versions of my libraries. See below:

Screen Shot 2013-04-14 at 10.27.11.png

What do you know!! When I added the image above, the browse work as it used to. (i.e.: click on browse, scroll down to Media, images, click on images> browse through iPhoto thumbnails and choose). But it's stil absent from the other programme and from Finder sidebar.

Sorry if my terminology doesn't make sense to people-who-know, but I do appreciate the interest you guys are showing in my problems and the help you're giving to try to sort it out.
 

bobtomay

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There is no Media in the Finder sidebar.
You will only see it there when you use 'File - Open' from within an application.

Try this - open Preview - go to the menu bar - File - Open...
That will open a Finder window that will temporarily have Media in the sidebar.
Once you select which file you want to open, the Media heading will disappear.
Would guess that is what you would use in those other programs, although it may have a different name.

For instance, In iPhoto - you would click on File - Import to Library.
Get the same Finder window popup with a temporary Media heading for selecting what you want to import.

Don't know what you mean by "click on Browse".
Where is that? Inside one of your applications?


(Retitled the thread accurately so that others might find it)
 
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Yeah, that works - and gets me out of a hole! Thanks for explaining it.

It's different than before (and less convenient) but I guess I'll get used to it.

Should I be concerned about the duplicate libraries? And the fact that the Library Archives apparently can't be found?


(Good move on changing the thread name too. Thanks again)
 

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