MacOS – “File Open” dialog is missing sidebar items

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I'm having the strangest issue since updating to OS X El Capitan. My "Open File" dialogs show the sidebar but all my main (and useful) locations are missing. Take a look at this screenshot. This screenshot shows Keychain Access but this happens in Safari when I'm trying to attach a file to Gmail for example, or uploading an image to Facebook.

What I would like is for the sidebar to show my home directories, such as Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.

Help?

enter image description here

Best Answer

  1. Go to your user library in Finder. Hold down ⌥ while opening the Go menu and click Library.
  2. Navigate to the Preferences folder.
  3. Remove any files that are or contain com.apple.finder.plist. (The removal of those files will very likely reset your Favourites list in Finder.)

  4. Restart or log out and log back in again then empty the trash and try again.

    Restarting might not be necessary. As madpoet says:

    You can also relaunch Finder if you don't want to reboot or log out. Right click on Finder icon while you're pressing ⌥ and you'll see the Relaunch option there.

    Relaunch Finder.

Alternatively, you can use this Bash oneliner by Christophe Marois:

cd ~/Library/Preferences && sudo find com.apple.finder.plist* -exec rm {} \; && killall Finder
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