Yosemite and invisible folders/files

[DougMan]

Got a call from a seasoned Mac user yesterday.
He is running the latest Yosemite flavor on his very new iMac.
When he opens some sub folders from within the Preview app it is missing entire sub folders.
Open the same folder tree from finder and clearly the files/folders are present.
He has also noticed this from other Applications.
Does this make any sense to anyone?

 

[MacInWin]

Without more information it's hard to help. On my Yosemite 10.10.2 system, Preview and Finder work exactly the same, see the same folders and subfolders. So, what folders are acting this way for your caller? Are the permissions on that folder the same as all the visible folder? What other applications are acting this way? Has anything been done to try to fix it? Run Permissions repair? Checked the drive? What else is installed? Any "helpers" like MacKeeper, FixMyMac, or any other of that type crapware? The only product we recommend here is Onyx, which is free and pretty much all you need for OS X maintenance.

 

[lori5060]

i have a problem similar. when i open finder on left screen is list:
all my files
iCloud drive
air drop
applications
desktop
documents
downloads
pictures
movies

i used to see some folders below that where i could actually drag files to folders so they would be kept on my Mac.
i cannot see them anymore.
there were some their by default but i created a couple but none are to be seen.

recently i purchased and installed office2016 and rosetta stone. don't think that should make a difference.
i probably have clicked on something inadvertently and now can't figure out how to get these back on my screen.

i have explained as best i can my issue. hope someone can give me some guidance.
thanks

 

[MacInWin]

@lori5060, if there is a folder you want on the side, find that folder and drag it to the sidebar and it should then show. I don't why the ones you had there went away, they are stored in the .plist for finder (AFAIK) so they should be there unless something happened to reset the .plist and they got lost. HINT: don't go INTO the folder, stay one level above it and drag/drop the folder icon.

 

[lori5060]

thanks macInWin
i had a bunch of folders there which were there when i started on my new Macbook...presume they were there by default. can't remember.
i had created more folders and sub folders and began to drag some of my files from mail and documents which i wanted to keep safe. now i cannot find them.
i think they were listed under lori macbook air
but there is nothing there now.

darn...which i had take a pic of that...but who would have guessed i would lose them.
not familiar with this .plist for finder (AFAIK) is but will search and try to find it.

hopefully they are there. this is the trouble i am having with converting to Apple from windows...cannot figure out where things go!!
am learning tho....slowly but surely.....

 

[MacInWin]

I suspect one of the installations tried to adjust the plist and overwrote what you had. Finding it won't help much unless you have a Time Machine backup to restore from a version before the change.

 

[lori5060]

i clicked finder go held option key chose library then preferences folder...nothing there that looked like my files.

how stupid can I be???
I found them all listed nicely as I remembered...not in Finder but my Mail.

but now i have another issued...when i click on pages to open doc for entering text etc
....the window which pops up is like the finder window...and no pages file.

the more it try to fix things the deeper i am getting into the black hole of my MAC and can't figure how where i am or what i am doing.

i think maybe i shall just try to power down for a bit and maybe that will bring all back as normal.

 

[lori5060]

after clicking on pages...and the screen popped up as if it was finder...i clicked new document and pages came up.
so what in the H......did i do to cause pages to open like finder???

 

[MacInWin]

Yep, that's how Pages works here, too. I think it's the plan. If you KNOW what document you want, you can skip the opening by selecting it in the first window, but if you say you want a new one, you get what used to be the opening page where you can select what you want to create. I noted that the panel to select what type of document no longer has an option to open an existing document, since that option was already presented.

 

[lori5060]

MacInWin....
guess i got confused with how office2016 word opens...they are bit different. now i am in the know.
thanks