I use Spotlight to open folders, but quite often the Finder opens on ~/ instead of the folder I was looking for. I realised it happens when I try to reveal a folder which lies in ~/Documents/. Revealing a folder somewhere else, eg ~/Music/iTunes works like a charm. But something like ~/Documents/foo/ falls back to ~/.
It might have happened for the first time after a system update, a few weeks/months ago. I am currently running macOS 11.2.1.
I suspected privacy privileges, and I reset them with tccutil reset All but it hasn't changed anything.
Interestingly, it seems like I'm not able to change the permissions of ~/Documents/, while it is possible for other folders (see example below).
Permission management is missing for ~/Documents (left), but is there for ~/Music (right)
Does anyone have an idea to explain this behaviour, and how to solve it? I'll be much grateful for any hint.
Edit 2021-02-15
Out of the blue, I tried something. I used the action Reveal in Finder of Alfred on a folder in ~/Documents/. It worked, and, since that, so does opening folders from a Spotlight search. It must have done something backstage, but I have no idea what. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Best Answer
I've figured out the problem. Looks like it had nothing to do with permissions of the Documents folder. The problem seemed to be related to the use of Column view in Finder. If you switch the view of Finder to the List view, Show in Finder/Reveal in Finder will work properly for files in the Documents folder. Hat tip to the Alfred team for discovering this workaround.