Home > Questions

Any help? My Finder not refreshing with new items

I have therefore observed this occur several times. Items saved from (mainly) Adobe programs to locations on the disk, like the Desktop or Documents folder, among others, do not appear as icons or in Finder windows until I relaunch the Finder (I'm using "killall Finder" in Terminal). The Adobe file save/open dialogue boxes do, however, display them. These are the applications I've been using, however, I'm not confident this is an Adobe-related problem. I recently saw a Mojave-related topic in which it was suggested to remove the com.apple.finder PLIST, yet none of my libraries contain that file. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even if occasionally killing the Finder is rather gratifying, waiting until there is a problem before doing so is... unnerving!

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Amanda Wong

Amanda Wong

Answered on Tuesday, August 5, 2025

When you save the new items to the Desktop or the Documents, you can easily access them from the Finder's sidebar. If the Finder doesn't refresh the new items and not show them there, the causes could be damaged Finder preference files, outdated macOS and applications, etc.

When the Mac Finder not working/responding, you can try the following methods to fix it not showing new items:

Relaunch Finder. You can force quit apps on Mac from Apple Menu > Force Quit, choose Finder, and click the Force Quit button.

Restart your Mac. Giving a fresh start to Mac could fix some minor issues and it could make the Finder refresh with new items.

Reset the Finder preferences file. It's possible that the malfunctioning Finder is caused by a corrupted preferences file, commonly known as a PLIST file, you can remove it(com.apple.finder.plist) from the Library folder > Preferences in Finder and restart the Mac to recreate it.

Update your Mac. Make sure the macOS and the applications are updated to the latest. Outdated macOS and apps could bring abnormal performance on your Mac, this method could fix the Finder not refreshing with new items.

 

People Also Ask

Read More Questions

Read More Advice From iBoysoft's Computer Experts

How to use My Passport for Mac

How to Use My Passport for Mac?[Time Machine & Format]

This guide explains how to use WD My Passport for Mac external hard drives on Mac and Windows PC. You'll learn how to open, format, back up to, and transfer files to WD My Passport for Mac.

mac sleep mode

What Is Mac Sleep Mode & How to Enable, Set, Change It?

This post explains what the sleep mode is on Mac, different types of sleep mode, and how to enable sleep mode, change sleep settings on macOS Ventura and earlier versions.