Problems with the Share menu

When I tried to share an Adobe Photoshop CC document, Finder’s Share menu was a shadow of its usual self, lacking all the options such as AirDrop. I also noticed that Photoshop was no longer offered as an app capable of opening the document. What has happened?

The Share menu is surprisingly complex, and some component it depends on has probably “broken.” When working out which methods of sharing to include in that menu, Finder first has to identify the file type, so that OS X can establish how such a document could be shared. The fact that Finder’s Open With menu didn’t offer Photoshop to open a document in its own format points the finger at that part of the mechanism.

If this happens again, try opening the same Share menu on a plain JPEG image. If that shows a similar problem, all you can do is restart Finder, log out and back in again, or even restart your Mac, to restore normal functionality. If the problem recurs, then it’s likely caused by a thirdparty extension conflicting with this mechanism, which restarting in safe mode should clarify (see apple. co/1P1IQrm). The difficulty then lies in identifying the extension that’s responsible, and updating or removing it.

If things are fine with a JPEG image, the problem results from something interfering specifically with Photoshop files, making Adobe products the most likely suspects. It’s also worth checking your Mac’s logs in the Console app, around the time the Share menu produced unexpected results, to see if they contain any better clues.