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Mounted external APFS drive not showing up in Finder even though it's set to?

After upgrading to macOS Monterey, I noticed that one of my external APFS volume is not showing up in Finder despite that it's mounted in Disk Utility. I checked Finder preferences and made sure Finder was configured to show external drives on the desktop and in Finder's sidebar. However, the APFS volume just won't show up in Finder. What should I do?

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Jenny Zeng

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Tuesday, August 5, 2025

A minor glitch may be what is rendering the mounted APFS volume not showing up in Finder. Try rebooting your Mac and reconnecting your external drive after safely ejecting it.

If that doesn't help, consider accessing the drive from Disk Utility or Terminal to back up its data and then reformatting the volume.

① Open Disk Utility, right-click the APFS volume, and click "Show in Finder.

② Open Terminal, run the following command: (suppose the volume's name is Jenny's USB):

open /Volumes/Jenny\'s\ USB 

After your data is backed up, open Disk Utility, select the APFS volume, and click the Erase button to format it.

 

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