finder stops working

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i am a new mac owner. in nov 2019 i purchased a 21.5-inch iMac with Retina 4K display. it has 16gb factory installed ram and 1tb hdd. the hdd has about 200gb remaining. the used portion is mostly data- music, videos and photos.

often times finder stoops working. i do a relaunch but it never opens again. i have to reboot the computer in order to get finder to work. in fact as i am typing this it is happening. i cannot get finder to open.

any reason why this is happening and any suggestions as to a fix?
 
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Raz0rEdge

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What version of macOS are you running? How frequently does this happen? Boot into Safe mode and see if it happens there.
 
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What version of macOS are you running? How frequently does this happen? Boot into Safe mode and see if it happens there.

catalina 10.15.2. been happening a number of times throughout the day. i'll try safe mode soon.
 

IWT


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M2 Max Studio Extra, 32GB memory, 4TB, Sonoma 14.4 Apple 5K Retina Studio Monitor
The advice you have been given is spot on, particularly regarding Safe Mode.

My minor suggestion is that you can Force Quit, then relaunch, Finder.

To do this: click on the Apple icon (top menu bar, far left). Choose Force Quit. Click on Finder. Click on Relaunch. You can do that in normal mode and Safe Mode.

Ian
 
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Seeing as you have about 20% free space on your internal drive, that may be where the issue is? Can you move stuff onto other drives?
 

chscag

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I agree with Bob. Your drive is about 75% full and unless you chose the fusion drive option, your current 1 TB hard drive is a 5200 RPM drive which is a bit slower than a 7200 RPM model.

As Bob advised, off load all those videos, photos, and music to an external drive.
 

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