Finder Favourites stuck

QWhen upgrading to a new MacBook Pro, I can’t rearrange the order of items in Finder windows’ Favourites, something which used to work fine. Although I can drag them into the order that I want, they revert to standard when I next start up. Is this a corrupt preference file, and how can I fix it? by DuncanB rack

AThese are classic symptoms of a preference file which isn’t saving the changes you made, and the property list in question should be ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple. finder.plist, which stores the great majority of Finder’s settings. The traditional way to fix this would be to move that file to another folder, such as Documents, then to log out and back on again, or restart. The snag with that is that macOS now manages preference Using a proper preference file editor like Prefs Editor is generally much more reliable than merely moving or trashing a preference file. files in a complex way, and you may find the regenerated preference file doesn’t solve the problem. In that case, use a tool like Prefs Editor or PrefEdit.

There may also be more problems with your preference files, such as incorrect permissions settings, which can stop them working normally. Apple has recently started to recommend that they can be addressed by repairing their permissions – not in the old way as before El Capitan, but those of your Home folder. Apple details this in bit.ly/preference_permissions, and I’ve looked at this in bit.ly/electriclight_ repairing permission sand provided simpler tools to help perform the repair.