How to Fix Mac Finder Not Responding

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When your Mac Finder Not Responding, you wonder if it’s because your system has run out of application memory. When the Finder is worn out, it takes longer to open folders or sometimes just crashes. If you update your Mac to the latest version of macOS, a lot of Mac users have had this problem.

Monterey, the latest update to macOS, has been talked about and looked forward to for a long time. It has a lot of new features and a new look that make the operating system look and feel more like iOS, which is the software that Apple uses on its Smartphone. Monterey has a lot of good things about it, but users are also having trouble with its performance after installing it.

One of these is that the Mac finder won’t work after you install Monterey. It usually says, “The finder can’t quit because an operation is still going on an iOS device.” Finder is where we all go to manage files and find our way around. But imagine if the Mac Finder didn’t do anything when you told it to. Since you can’t do anything without it, it would definitely slow you down.

Ways to Fix Mac Finder Not Responding

Kill the Finder process in Activity Monitor

If you can’t open your Finder or can’t start it up again after closing it, you should check to see if it is still working but not responding. To do that, you need to use the Activity Monitor tool that comes with macOS. Activity Monitor is used to keep track of and control the programmes that are running on a Mac. If Finder is on the list of processes in Activity Monitor, stop it.

• Press down Command-Space together to open the Mac Spotlight Search.
• Type in Activity Monitor in the search box and double-click it.
• In the Activity Monitor window, enter Finder in the top right corner search box.
• If Finder shows up under the CPU tab, select it and click the top icon > Force Quit.

Check and clear storage space

There’s a chance that Finder is slow or won’t work because it doesn’t have enough storage space. You can check how much space is on your Macintosh HD by going to Apple > About This Mac > Storage.

If you’re almost out of storage space on your Mac, click the Manage button to get rid of the big, useless files and programmes. It is recommended that you leave at least 20GB of free space on your computer so that programmes and the system can run.

Relaunch Finder

When Finder is slow, freezes, or crashes, it wastes your time and makes it harder for you to get work done. To stop this tedious process, you can close Finder and then open it again. If your Finder is slow, you can close it by clicking the X in the upper left corner of the window. Then open Finder again.

If the Finder completely stops working, you can close it by clicking the “Exit” button. In that case, you need to start it up again right away. Here are two ways to start Finder over again.

• Select the Apple menu > Force Quit. Then, choose Finder and click Relaunch.
• Press down Command-Option-Esc on your keyboard at the same time to open the Force Quit Applications window. Next, select Finder > Relaunch.

Close unneeded programs

If Finder and other apps on your MacBook don’t run smoothly or don’t respond when you try to open them, you might want to check to see if the memory is almost full. You can also go to the official Apple support site to know more information about this.

Memory, which is also called RAM, is used to store information that programmes and system processes need to run on your Mac. If you run too many apps at once, you might use up all the memory. Because of this, your Mac will run slowly, keep crashing, or freeze, and programmes like Finder will do the same thing.

In Activity Monitor, you can see how much memory is being used. And if the memory pressure is red or yellow, it means the memory is almost empty. In this case, you can get your Mac to free up more memory by:

• Closing the useless and memory-consuming apps
• Quit the redundant browser tabs

Restart your Mac

If reopening Finder doesn’t fix a Mac Finder that won’t do anything, you can try restarting your Mac. Finder doesn’t always work right because of errors or bugs in the system, not because of Finder itself. Open the Apple menu and choose Restart to restart your Mac.

Reset the Finder preferences file

The Finder might be acting strangely because the preferences file is broken. In macOS, an app’s settings file is called a PLIST file. It is kept in Finder’s Library folder. You have to delete the Finder preferences file from your Mac before you can reset it. Next, restart the computer so that it can make a new one on its own.

But you can’t open the Library folder in Finder to delete the Finder PLIST file because Finder won’t respond or keeps crashing. You can also do this task with the help of Terminal. Here’s how to use Mac Terminal to get rid of a broken Finder preferences file:

• Open Launchpad > Other > Terminal.
• Copy and paste the command below onto the Terminal window and press Return/Enter.

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

• Enter your admin password.
• Exit Terminal.

Update your Mac

It’s too bad that your Finder still won’t work after you’ve tried all of these things. There is a chance that the version of macOS your Mac is running right now has some bugs or errors that need to be fixed.

Especially for people who use the earliest update of macOS Monterey or Big Sur. Because of this, a lot of people talk in the forum about how the Finder doesn’t work on macOS Monterey or Big Sur. If you’re having the same problem, you can fix it by updating your Mac.

• Select the Apple logo > System Preferences.
• Choose Software Update in System Preferences.
• Click Update Now/Restart Now to proceed minor update on your Mac. If it shows Upgrade Now, click More Info to check if the current version has any updates.

FAQ

Why does Finder on my Mac keep freezing?

If your Mac is running out of disc space or is running low on disc space, this could be why your Mac Finder keeps crashing. You can easily see how much space you have and get rid of things if you need to. Check your available storage space: Click the Apple logo in the upper left corner and then choose About This Mac.

Can I reinstall Finder on Mac?

If you hold down the option key and then click and hold the Finder icon with your mouse or track pad, you should see a list with the command “Relaunch” as the first option above the icon. You can restart Finder by letting go of the mouse on the Relaunch button, or you can just restart the machine.