MacOS – How to remove Keybase from the Finder Favorites

findermacos

Keybase adds a folder to my Finder favorites that I cannot remove. I've checked the Keybase issues database and this appears to be a known but still not addressed issue, so I think I need to (1) stop using Keybase and (2) fix this in the Finder.

How do I do (2): how do I force the removal of an item from my Finder Favorites that I cannot remove in the normal way (using the items menu or dragging out of the sidebar)?

Best Answer

The following worked for me in macOS High Sierra.

To remove Keybase from under Favorites on Finder's Sidebar, I did the following:

Open: Keybase
Click: Settings
Click: FILES
Uncheck: [] Enable Keybase in Finder

Click the Remove & Restart button on the ensuing dialog box.

Drag Keybase from under Favorites on Finder's Sidebar until the (x) appears and then let go.

Even after rebooting my Mac, Keybase did not reappear under Favorites on Finder's Sidebar. All is as it should be and I can continue to use the other features of Keybase.

If you no longer want to use Keybase and completely remove the App and support files, then do the following:

Close the Keybase app and it's Menu Extras icon.

Then using AppCleaner:

Open: AppCleaner
Drag and drop the Keybase app onto AppCleaner.
Click the Remove button.

_{Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of AppCleaner, just a satisfied user.}

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

In Terminal, run the following command. You should find the word Network mentioned at least once in your .plist preference file:

defaults read com.apple.sidebarlists | grep Network

Applicability

As I can't drag Network to my Finder sidebar — and as sidebar takes a different approach to showing shared items — I guess that:

in Lion, Network is no longer applicable in the FAVORITES part of the sidebar
maybe for you, Network was amongst sidebar favourites in a previous version of the operating system.

Removing unwanted items from the property list

Probably easiest with Xcode.

If you don't have Xcode, then use TextWrangler or anything that's capable of editing this type of property list.

Identifying items in the .plist

Xcode views of the property list:

Xcode view of the property list with all items collapsed

A TextWrangler view:

TextWrangler view of the properly list with all word matches visible

To view Network, with or without the sidebar

⇧⌘K

In the sidebar

show SHARED
click All…

screenshot of Finder, 'All…' presenting Network

If the option 'All…' does not appear

First try removing, from the property list, unwanted or redundant items relating to Network.

A guess: it may be necessary to quit Finder, or log out, before some types of change become effective.

If following removals and a log out you find that SHARED is still without All…, consider asking a separate question.

MacOS – How to remove the Finder icon from the Dock

There is no easy way to do this, but there is a little hack :)

Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/
Backup DockMenus.plist
Open DockMenus.plist in your favorite text editor with root access

Find section finder-running and add new sub-section

<dict>
    <key>command</key>
    <integer>1004</integer>
    <key>name</key>
    <string>REMOVE_FROM_DOCK</string>
</dict>

or just Download my version of DockMenus.plist

In plist editor file should look like this:
Open Terminal and run killall Dock.
Right click on Finder icon in Dock - Bingo!

p.s After Dock restart (manual relaunch or mac reboot) you need manually remove Finder icon from Dock