Why file links appear in the folder sidebar and how can I prevent this from happening

folderssidebar

My question is related to Remove link to something that is not a folder in the Finder sidebar, but my problem is fundamentally different.

I still have file links appearing in my folder sidebar. But I know how to remove those links, I just right-click and choose the option Remove from the sidebar.

I actually have no idea how files end up appearing in there: I don't drag them, I don't do anything special. Actually, if I drag them, I get a nice Forbidden icon. So I don't get how they should even appear.

So why do they appear there and how can I prevent this from happening?

I have Mountain Lion 10.8.2.

Best Answer

You might accidentally be pressing the shortcut commandT which means “Add to Sidebar” in the Finder but is used for many different things in many other applications. So if you think another application is frontmost where actually the Finder is you'd accidentally add the currently selected file to the sidebar. Happened to me a few times.

Related Solutions

I deleted the Downloads folder, why can’t I remove the items pinned to the sidebar

Hold command and click and drag the alias out if the side to remove, I believe.

MacOS – Change Mac OS X Finder sidebar icons

This isn't an answer but it does add some information. The value associated with the com.apple.LSSharedFileList.TemplateSystemSelector key, 1935819875, is a decimal representation of the file type. In hex, it is 0x73624463, which are the ascii letters 'sbDc'. This file type is described in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Info.plist. This is a binary plist that you can convert to xml using plutil -convert xml1 -o Info.plist.xml Info.plist. Looking in the Info.plist.xml file, you can see a dictionary at the top level. Inside this there is a key "CFBundleDocumentTypes" and an array of dictionaries as its value. In this array is a dictionary that contains the following:

<dict>
    <key>CFBundleTypeIconFile</key>
    <string>SidebarDocumentsFolder.icns</string>
    <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
    <string>Sidebar Documents Folder Icon</string>
    <key>CFBundleTypeOSTypes</key>
    <array>
        <string>sbDc</string>
    </array>
    <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
    <string>None</string>
    <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key>
    <false/>
    <key>NSPersistentStoreTypeKey</key>
    <string>Binary</string>
</dict>

An interesting key/value pair in this dictionary is CFBundleTypeIconFile: SidebarDocumentsFolder.icns. This file can be found at /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/SidebarDocumentsFolder.icns and it contains the icons used for document folders.

I would think that changing the com.apple.LSSharedFileList.TemplateSystemSelector value to a different value, or updating the dictionary for 'sbDc' to refer to a different icns file would get you on your way to having custom icons.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

I deleted the Downloads folder, why can’t I remove the items pinned to the sidebar

MacOS – Change Mac OS X Finder sidebar icons

Related Question