Menu Bar Items

[hughvane]

How to
a) restore more items to the Menu bar (Sonoma), particularly Keyboard
and
b) Desktop to the Favourites sidebar in Finder?

Neither seems available in Finder Settings tho I do have Desktop checked therein.

 

[Jimmysb]

In settings / control centre:

 

[toMACsh]

It seems that Desktop is shown by default under Favorites. It shows up in my Sidebar under Favorites, though there is not a checkbox for it there, but there is under the iCloud heading.

So it is odd that it's not showing for you. I wonder if the Finder .plist file is corrupt. I'm not sure if that's as common now as it once was.

 

[MacInWin]

I suspect you have "Optimize Mac Storage" turned on. When that happens the Desktop and Documents folders are moved to the iCloud and pointers to them are put on iCloud Drive. Then Desktop and Documents in your user area are removed. The sidebar just points to folders, so Desktop moves to iCloud Drive in the Sidebar.

My daughter has the same setup, and it has a serious problem for her in that when the files that have been evicted to the cloud (Apple's term for it), are then retrieved, they come down as hidden and she cannot see them in Finder. Find Any File can find them just fine, but she's had to resort to Terminal commands to change the permissions on these hidden files to allow her to make them unhidden. It's a mess, and there are a number of complaints in the Apple Community discussions about it.

 

[hughvane]

It seems that Desktop is shown by default under Favorites. It shows up in my Sidebar under Favorites, though there is not a checkbox for it there, but there is under the iCloud heading.

See att. image. That's all that shows in side or menu bars in Finder in Sonoma.

I'll upload a second image later (after changing Macs) from the previous Mojave OS on my 2018 Mini (M18).

So it is odd that it's not showing for you. I wonder if the Finder .plist file is corrupt. I'm not sure if that's as common now as it once was.

I considered something 'awry' in the OS, so ran OnyX, no faults found.

 

[hughvane]

I suspect you have "Optimize Mac Storage" turned on.

The Optimise button shows, but I have not activated it. I do not wittingly use iCloud. I note it is on however, but with only the Sync function active.

Oddly as it may seem to many, I have never felt compelled to use iCloud, preferring to do backups to EHDs. Hopefully Apple make improvements to the issues your daughter is experiencing.

 

[Rod]

I suspect you have "Optimize Mac Storage" turned on. When that happens the Desktop and Documents folders are moved to the iCloud and pointers to them are put on iCloud Drive. Then Desktop and Documents in your user area are removed. The sidebar just points to folders, so Desktop moves to iCloud Drive in the Sidebar.

My daughter has the same setup, and it has a serious problem for her in that when the files that have been evicted to the cloud (Apple's term for it), are then retrieved, they come down as hidden and she cannot see them in Finder. Find Any File can find them just fine, but she's had to resort to Terminal commands to change the permissions on these hidden files to allow her to make them unhidden. It's a mess, and there are a number of complaints in the Apple Community discussions about it.

Can't your daughter just turn that option off? You may recall that I wrote a thread about accidentally turning Optimise Storage on myself. After trying it for a while I eventually turned it off. All my files were restored but I never had any permission issues. It sounds like your daughter's case is more complicated. Was she short of storage or did it happen "accidentally" at setup?

 

[hughvane]

In settings / control centre:

View attachment 39071

Thank you, I have searched the (pictured) section a number of times, but nowhere under 'Other Modules' (not quite visible in your image) does it state Keyboard and Show In Menu Bar.

I'm using an Apple bluetooth keyboard, but I use the same one with Mojave, so I don't think it is a factor.

Attached is the combo of Finder Pane and Menu Bar to be found on my 2018 Mini/Mojave. That's the setup I'd like to be able to restore in Sonoma.

If I click Keyboard in Settings, nowhere does it state Show in Menu Bar there either.

 

[MacInWin]

Can't your daughter just turn that option off? You may recall that I wrote a thread about accidentally turning Optimise Storage on myself. After trying it for a while I eventually turned it off. All my files were restored but I never had any permission issues. It sounds like your daughter's case is more complicated. Was she short of storage or did it happen "accidentally" at setup?

According to all I can find, turning it off isn't a solution. Basically, if it's on, and your stuff has been evicted, when you turn it off, the system re-creates new, empty Desktop and Documents folders where they were, but then the downloaded files are NOT put there, but in some Archive folders. And a lot of folks are finding that those Archive folders look empty to Finder because of the issue it has with that happening for all evicted files. Apple has been silent.

What she plans to do is to use the Terminal commands after retrieving all of the evicted files, then disconnect from the Internet before they can be evicted again and then move them to an external drive that she bought just for the purpose. These are files for her home business, so what she will do is keep all of the business-related stuff on that external and connect to it when in her home office. Once she knows it's all safely offline, she will reconnect to the Internet and see what happens when she turns off Optimize. If it screws up as it has for a lot of folks, she'll still have the offline copies. If it works and Desktop/Documents is properly restored, that will be fine. If it retrieves the files as hidden in the archive folders, she'll delete the archive folders and move on.

She had deliberately chosen the Optimize option. Her MBA only has a 256GB drive, and her business has a lot of photos for the products she sells online, so that space disappeared pretty quickly. Keeping it on an external will be a small PITA as she takes the pictures on her iPhone and syncs through iCloud to the MBA, but now that she's aware of the issue, she can do a workaround to make it work.

I think she also plans to contact Apple support about it, but from other folks with the same issue Apple hasn't been much help. I tried to contact Apple support for her, but the Apple rep could only suggest reinstalling the OS, I pointed out that it was an Apple Silicon Mac, which technically checks for any OS issues at boot, so reinstallation isn't needed and the tech was surprised at that and had no other suggestions.

Turns out the folks who say Apple ain't what it used to be were right, I guess.

CLARIFICATION: In Sonoma, the option is now under Storage Settings and is labelled "Store in iCloud..." That option then leads to a panel where there are options to Store in iCloud Desktop and Documents and/or Photos. My research says that if you turn on those options, what happens is that everything in Desktop/Documents is evicted to iCloud, or all files in Photos is evicted, or both. And by "evicted" I mean it is no longer on the Mac, but ONLY in the cloud until you retreive it, which is when the visibility problems begin. But at least the labelling is more accurate than the previous "Optimize Mac Storage."

 

[Rod]

Hughvane, is this what you want?



Click on the red boxed item and you get this:

 

[Rod]

According to all I can find, turning it off isn't a solution. Basically, if it's on, and your stuff has been evicted, when you turn it off, the system re-creates new, empty Desktop and Documents folders where they were, but then the downloaded files are NOT put there, but in some Archive folders.

@MacInWin, not to intrude too much on hughvane's post but this was my experience on turning off the optimise option in these forums; If you accidentally Synced your Documents and Desktop Folders with iCloud Maybe there is something handy in this for your daughter. The empty folder issue turned out to be easy to fix (for me).

 

[MacInWin]

@MacInWin, not to intrude too much on hughvane's post but this was my experience on turning off the optimise option in these forums; If you accidentally Synced your Documents and Desktop Folders with iCloud Maybe there is something handy in this for your daughter. The empty folder issue turned out to be easy to fix (for me).

Yeah, that could be a solution but right now all of her evicted files are being retrieved as invisible and with zero permissions for her to change anything. That means that she has to use Terminal and chmod to authorize her account to be able to change anything, and then chflags to turn off the hidden flag. That will be what she does once the external drive she ordered arrives. One small trap in this is that you do NOT want to do the Terminal work on any other evicted files as folks have had those evicted files vanish completely from both the Mac and iCloud as a result of the changes being made by chmod and chflags to evicted files. What gets left behind when files are evicted are so-called "dataless" files, and they do not function as true files do. So she needs to be disconnected from the Internet right after retrieving all evicted files to stop any from being re-evicted while the Terminal commands are being run. The assumption in all of this is that her 256GB drive will be able to handle all of the data for a while in this process as it gets retrieved to the Mac and written out to the external.

Basically, her plan is to connect and prepare the external drive first.
Then retrieve ALL files in the Documents folder and once that is done, immediately disconnect from the internet (Turn off WiFI).
Move the retrieved files for her business to the external drive and verify they are there.
Decide whether or not to purge the relocated files immediately or hold off until Desktop is sorted. I'm inclined to do the purge as the space may well be needed in the next couple of steps.

Backup the drive as it exists at that time.

Repeat the process for Desktop (retrieve all, isolate from Internet, check downloads).

Backup again.

Once Desktop is safely downloaded, turn off "Store in iCloud" and see what happens. This is where it could get ugly as it is a potential outcome that GBs of files will download, hidden and unchangeable and fill up the internal drive. That's why I'm leaning to purging the drive to have as much space as possible. That way if the drive gets overloaded with hidden and unchangeable files there might be enough room to at least boot and operate to do the Terminal work to gain access to these hidden/unchangeable files. If it gets so full it can't operate, do a clean install and restore from the backup.

I think that will work, and I hope it will avoid the reinstallation, but it's about all I can think of at this point. The phenomenon of hidden unchangeable files adds a real wrinkle in it, for sure.

 

[Rod]

It sure does.

 

[hughvane]

Hughvane, is this what you want?

View attachment 39077

Some of it yes, thank you, but there are items in that image that simply don't exist in the Sonoma 14.2.1 I'm using, eg.
Keyboard Brightness

This from a Mac mate of mine
"System settings > Keyboard > Text Input > Input sources > Edit"
That's done it .
I've included how my Keyboard Settings look now.

Something else I've noticed missing however is the identifying text bubble that used to appear in a previous OS - can't recall which one - when the mouse pointer was hovered over a Menu Bar item.

Hugh

 

[hughvane]

I am now replete, as it were .

Said mate has also instructed me how to put Desktop (Dt) in the sidebar of Finder.
"Adding desktop to the sidebar is just opening a window with it in and then dragging the folder to the sidebar."
A little vague, but assuming a few things, I opened Macintosh HD>Users>'name'>Desktop, and dragged the Dt folder over the Favourites word in the sidebar. There they were (the Dt folder contained others like Applications and Documents. Yippee!

Thanks again for all the help from M-F contributors.

 

[Rod]

Your Desktop Folder contained the Applications and Documents Folders?

 

[hughvane]

Your Desktop Folder contained the Applications and Documents Folders?

No, that seemed just to happen, and I mistakenly assumed, and then gave the impression that, the extras' had come from the Dt folder. To be honest, I don't know where from or why they jumped into the Favourites list, but I'm a happy camper.

Hugh

 

[toMACsh]

@hughvane
This is in response to your post #5. I have not read through all the posts after that. But, from your image, which does not show anything under the Favorites heading, this suggestion is worth a shot.

Position your cursor to the right (far right) of the word Favorites. Click on the "carrot" (^) that appears. Does this change the Sidebar and show items under this heading?

Sorry if I'm missing the point of your question.

 

[hughvane]

Position your cursor to the right (far right) of the word Favorites. Click on the "carrot" (^) that appears. Does this change the Sidebar and show items under this heading?

It certainly does, and thank you. Lesson learned.

Sorry if I'm missing the point of your question.

Not at all, and I hope others, who may have been as bewildered by Sonoma OS' habits, or lack of, as I was and maybe still am, will have benefited from the overall discussion.

 

[MacInWin]

Not at all, and I hope others, who may have been as bewildered by Sonoma OS' habits, or lack of, as I was and maybe still am, will have benefited from the overall discussion.

Actually, nothing we have discussed, other than the change in iCloud Drive behavior when one elects to store Desktop/Documents in the cloud, has changed in Sonoma from previous versions. All of the "fixes" you have been given have been there for several iterations of macOS. I suspect you just never hit them before, so think it's new in Sonoma. And the one thing that is really new, the iCloud Drive function, is more a factor of Apple actually making iCloud Drive/Store in iCloud work as it has been described for several macOS versions but which never really worked that way. Now they have "fixed" it to be what it was described to be and folks are seeing the change.

My daughter's problem is apparently a new bug in how evicted files are retrieved which manifests itself more aggressively now that eviction is more aggressive. She's working around it until it gets repaired in some update.