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The "Show In Finder" action isn't working on Mac OS X Mountain Lion. The problem has just started to occur all the time, before it was a bit sporadic, but now it happens all the time.

Things that don't work:

  • In the chrome Downloads page clicking any of the "Show in Finder" links.
  • Right clicking a file in XCode and choosing "Show in Finder"

Things that work:

  • open . in terminal
  • command-n after command tabbing to Finder.

Things I've tried to fix the issue:

  • Opt - Right Click finder in the dock and relauching
  • Restarting my computer

Anybody ever experienced this issue?

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6
  • Experienced it... but no idea how I solved it other than possibly through OS updates. Command-clicking a Dock icon will probably not work as well?
    – Daniel Beck ♦
    Sep 25, 2012 at 18:36
  • @DanielBeck Command-clicking a dock icon does work
    – Gavin Miller
    Sep 25, 2012 at 18:43
  • Just wondering. Do you use TotalFinder? This might be related.
    – Antonin Hildebrand
    Sep 29, 2012 at 6:51
  • @Darwin nope. I don't use total finder.
    – Gavin Miller
    Sep 29, 2012 at 20:37
  • I've seen it happen as well. Could it be that you're using Dropbox?
    – slhck
    Oct 27, 2012 at 22:07

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
33

It is a bug introduced by Apple in 10.8.2.

Workaround: when it happens, in Terminal run the following:

sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

Alternatively, use Activity Monitor to kill appleeventsd. More information on the issue.

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10
  • 1
    This didn't work for me on 10.8.2.
    – Joe Mornin
    Nov 9, 2012 at 18:32
  • 1
    Didn't work for me either.
    – Jean-Philippe Pellet
    Nov 15, 2012 at 20:50
  • 2
    Worked on 10.8.2. Would have accepted sooner, but stopped happening after I posted the question -- one day I will find Murphy and slap him with a piece of peanut butter toast. Peanut butter side up!
    – Gavin Miller
    Nov 19, 2012 at 16:12
  • 1
    Terminating appleeventsd works for me as well. It also fixes an issue where Archive Utility stops responding whenever you extract an archive.
    – Lri
    Jan 12, 2013 at 9:51
  • 1
    I had to restart after following this step for it to take effect in 10.10
    – Drew C
    Jun 25, 2015 at 15:34
7

I had to delete the lockfile also:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist.lockfile

and then restarting the finder (or you can reboot):

killall Finder
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4
  • Didn't work for me.
    – Jean-Philippe Pellet
    Nov 15, 2012 at 20:52
  • Running sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd didn't work for me. Simply deleting my Finder preferences did, though.
    – Ashley Coolman
    Jan 11, 2013 at 13:54
  • Worked for me too! However, it undid the update to show hidden files that I'd done minutes earlier: mikesel.info/show-hidden-files-mac-os-x-10-7-lion
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Jul 23, 2013 at 17:42
  • (But redoing that update to show hidden files didn't provoke the show in finder problem again. The first time I did the update it didn't "take", probably because the preferences file was already partly corrupted -- had to do the update twice.)
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Jul 23, 2013 at 17:52
1

In Yosemite 10.10.2, this is what I did to fix it:

open a new Terminal window and run this command

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Then restart Finder with

killall Finder

Open a new Finder window with right click Finder icon -> New Finder window (because the bug prevents the normal left click action), press Shift + Cmd + G (Go to) and paste

~/Library/Preferences

Delete

  • com.apple.finder.plist
  • com.apple.dock.plist
  • com.apple.systemuiserver.plist

Leave the Finder window open (I don´t know if it is necessary, but that´s what I did) Then switch to Terminal and paste

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

Restart Finder again

killall Finder

and finally

sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

Restart your Mac, and chances are that everything is back to normal. Just remember that deleting the Finder preferences removes any custom views/side bar preferences, so just go through Finder -> Preferences again and fix things the way you like it.

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