Finder will not relaunch on a Mac: the causes to rule out one by one

The Force Quit window has been opened, Finder selected, Relaunch clicked. Nothing changes. Or the desktop icons vanish and never return, the menu bar stays empty, and the Dock icon for Finder shows no indicator. Clicking Relaunch again produces the same result.

This is a different problem from a frozen Finder. A frozen Finder is a process that is running but stuck. A Finder that will not relaunch is a process that either cannot end, or cannot start properly again. Both have a short list of causes, and each cause can be confirmed or ruled out with a specific test. This article goes through them in the order that saves the most time.

Work out which kind of failure it is

"Finder won't relaunch" covers two different failures, and the fix depends on which one is happening.

The old Finder will not die. The Relaunch button is clicked, but the Finder process never ends. Windows stay frozen. This usually means Finder is waiting on something at a level where it cannot respond to the request to quit, most often a disk or network volume that has stopped answering.

The new Finder will not come up. The old process ends, the desktop goes blank, and a new Finder either never appears or starts and immediately stops. This usually means something Finder loads at startup is failing: an extension, a damaged preference file, or a problem with the disk.

To tell them apart, open Terminal (Spotlight still works when Finder does not, via Command and the space bar) and run:

pgrep -l Finder

Note the number it prints. Try to relaunch, then run the command again.

Result	Meaning
Same number both times	The old Finder is not ending
Different number	Finder restarted, but the new one is failing
No output the second time	Finder ended and has not come back
Number keeps changing every few seconds	Finder is starting and crashing in a loop

Each row points to a different section below.

If the old Finder will not end: volumes and cloud storage

A process that is waiting on a disk read at a low level can ignore the ordinary quit signal until the read completes or times out. Finder is especially exposed to this because it displays every mounted volume in the sidebar and asks each for information.

Candidates, in order of how often they turn up:

• A network share on a server or NAS that has gone to sleep or dropped off the network.
• An external drive with a loose cable, a failing enclosure, or a disk that is not responding.
• A cloud storage folder where the provider has stopped responding.
• A disk image that was mounted from a network location that is no longer reachable.

The test is to remove them. Unplug external drives. Turn off Wi-Fi for a moment to cut network shares loose. Quit cloud storage apps from their menu bar icons, or from Activity Monitor if the icon is not responding. Then try to relaunch again.

If the old Finder ends within a few seconds of a particular device being removed, that device is the cause. Reconnect it later and run First Aid on it in Disk Utility before trusting it again.

When nothing will make the process end, a stronger signal is available from Terminal:

killall -9 Finder

The -9 option ends the process without giving it a chance to clean up. It is safe for Finder in the sense that no documents are harmed, but any copy in progress is abandoned. If even this does not remove the process, the process is stuck in the kernel waiting on hardware, and only a restart of the Mac will clear it.

If the new Finder will not start: extensions

When Finder ends but a new one fails to appear, or appears and crashes in a loop, the first suspect is code that runs inside Finder. Finder extensions add badges, context menu items and sync status to Finder windows. They are written by the developers of cloud storage apps, version control tools, compression utilities and similar software. When one of them fails at startup, Finder can fail with it.

Apple's documentation places the controls in System Settings, under General, then Login Items & Extensions. Third-party extensions appear in their own section, and Finder extensions have a checkbox that decides whether Finder loads them. The documentation describes it this way:

These are extensions created by third-party developers. If the extension is a content extension that enables extra functionality in apps, an Actions checkbox is shown below the extension. If it's a Finder extension, a Finder checkbox is shown. Source: support.apple.com

Turn off every third-party Finder extension, then relaunch Finder. If it now starts normally, turn the extensions back on one at a time, relaunching after each, until the failure returns. The last one switched on is the culprit. Check for an update from its developer, or leave it off.

The apps behind these extensions often also install login items and background helpers. If disabling the extension alone does not help, quit the app itself.

When Finder is caught in a start and crash loop, the Console app usually holds evidence. Open Console from Spotlight and choose Crash Reports in the sidebar. Apple's Console guide notes that crash report names have the .ips extension. Reports named after Finder, with a time that matches the loop, list the code that was running at the moment of each crash. A name belonging to another developer's bundle near the top of the crashed thread is a strong hint about which extension to switch off first, and saves testing them one by one.

If the new Finder will not start: preferences

Finder reads its settings from a preference file when it starts. A damaged file, or a setting written by an old utility that the current macOS no longer handles well, can stop Finder from starting cleanly.

The preferences can be set aside without deleting them. In Terminal, first save a copy:

defaults export com.apple.finder ~/Desktop/finder-settings-backup.plist

Then clear the settings and restart Finder:

defaults delete com.apple.finder
killall Finder

Using the defaults command rather than dragging the preference file to the Trash matters. macOS keeps preferences in memory through a background service, and a file removed by hand can be written back from that memory a moment later, so the reset appears not to have worked.

If Finder now starts, the preferences were the cause. Finder will be back to default settings: the sidebar layout, the folder new windows open to, and whether file extensions are shown will all need to be set again. If Finder still fails, restore the old settings with defaults import com.apple.finder ~/Desktop/finder-settings-backup.plist and move on.

The sidebar list of favorites is stored separately from these preferences, so a sidebar full of entries for missing servers is not affected by this step. Removing stale sidebar entries once Finder is running again is still worth doing.

Disk space and the startup disk

Finder needs to write small files as it runs, including caches and window state. A startup disk that is almost completely full can leave it unable to start properly. The same is true, more seriously, for a startup disk with file system damage.

Check free space from Terminal, which still works when Finder does not:

df -h /

If the available column shows only a few gigabytes, free space before anything else. Emptying the Trash, removing large downloads, and deleting old local backups from other apps are the usual quick wins. The Terminal rm command works without Finder, but double check paths carefully when using it.

If space is fine, run First Aid on the startup disk from Disk Utility. It checks the file system for errors and repairs what it can. Disk Utility can be opened from Spotlight without Finder.

Safe mode and a second account settle what is left

If none of the above has identified the cause, two comparisons narrow it to one side or the other.

Safe mode starts macOS without third-party login items and extensions, performs a check of the startup disk, and clears some system caches. Apple describes it as a way to determine whether an issue is caused by software that loads as the Mac starts up.

To help determine whether an issue is caused by software that loads as your Mac starts up, you can start up your Mac in safe mode. Source: support.apple.com

On a Mac with Apple silicon, shut down, then press and hold the power button until startup options appear. Select the startup disk, hold Shift, and click Continue in Safe Mode. On an Intel Mac, hold Shift right after pressing the power button.

If Finder works in safe mode, the cause is something added to the Mac: an extension, a login item, a font. If it fails in safe mode as well, the cause is in macOS or on the disk.

A second user account gives the other comparison. If Finder works for a newly created user but not the original one, the cause is in the original account's files, which usually means preferences, the sidebar list, or a login item that only that account runs. If it fails for every account, it is system wide, and installing the latest macOS update, or reinstalling macOS over the existing system, is the remaining step. Reinstalling macOS from macOS Recovery keeps user files, but a current backup should be in place first.

Keeping it from happening again

Once Finder is working, the cause found above usually suggests the prevention.

When it was a volume, unmount network shares at the end of the day and before sleep, so that Finder never wakes to find a share gone. When it was an extension, keep the app that installed it up to date, or keep the extension off if the app works without it. When it was the preference file, avoid utilities that write unfamiliar Finder settings, and keep the exported settings file as a known good copy.

There is also a pattern worth noticing in how files are handled. Finder is involved in far more than browsing. Save dialogs, drag and drop between apps and desktop icons all pass through it. A working setup that keeps many windows pointed at the same project folder, including editors, terminals and AI assistants that read and write files, puts constant load on it. Some people move that project work into a file manager with a built-in terminal, which keeps the busiest folders out of Finder. The features page for such a tool shows the layout, and pricing sets out what it costs.

What to change first

Run pgrep -l Finder before and after a relaunch to learn which kind of failure it is. If the old Finder will not end, disconnect volumes and cloud storage; if the new one will not start, turn off Finder extensions and then reset preferences with defaults, keeping an export first. If the root cause turns out to be heavy project work across many windows, Atriens keeps folders, a terminal and AI in one window.