Finder slow to show large folder contents - "loading"

[BKDad]

So apparently Quick Look extensions are supposed to live inside Apps and not as separate "files" that a user would manually install. The apps that have QL extensions can be found in the Privacy System Settings and can be turned on/off.

System Settings>Privacy & Security>Extensions>Quick Look

View attachment 2284337

Very interesting! I need to read up much more on some of those extensions - ones I never even heard of.

In any event, Quick Look isn't activated in my Settings. Not because I was smart or insightful - it just wasn't activated.

But, I did nuke Dropbox from the Added Extensions panel.

No difference, sad to say... But, it was a valuable experiment and set me on to research some interesting macOS features.

 

[titaniumdoughnu]

Yeah, this hasn't worked since Monterey, or maybe even Big Sur. It was whenever Dropbox completely re-wrote the app to Apple's new OS specifications and was really late delivering it. I honestly can't remember the timeline, but it has been a while.

I can't actually find any QuickLook generator files, and I know I have at least two 3rd party apps that install them... I just can't find them.

That's weird. I tested this yesterday on Ventura. New Mac Studio - set up from scratch a few months ago, not inheriting an older OS.

Before deleting, I checked that the files were there and ~/Library/QuickLook/DropboxQL.qlgenerator DID exist.

 

[svenmany]

So apparently Quick Look extensions are supposed to live inside Apps and not as separate "files" that a user would manually install. The apps that have QL extensions can be found in the Privacy System Settings and can be turned on/off.

System Settings>Privacy & Security>Extensions>Quick Look

View attachment 2284337

Component registration when applications are placed in /Applications has existed for many years. I have nothing enabled in that popup and still the QuickLook generator in various application bundles are activated when the apps are placed in /Applications. I have four entries in that window, but many more non-Apple applications that support QuickLook.

 

[svenmany]

That's weird. I tested this yesterday on Ventura. New Mac Studio - set up from scratch a few months ago, not inheriting an older OS.

Before deleting, I checked that the files were there and ~/Library/QuickLook/DropboxQL.qlgenerator DID exist.

I also have that generator in that location. Those generators can exist in various places. For example /System/Library/QuickLook, /Library/QuickLook, ~/Library/QuickLook, and application bundles. Not sure where else.

 

[BKDad]

That's weird. I tested this yesterday on Ventura. New Mac Studio - set up from scratch a few months ago, not inheriting an older OS.

Before deleting, I checked that the files were there and ~/Library/QuickLook/DropboxQL.qlgenerator DID exist.

That's weird. Same situation for me. New Studio back in July, so no old operating system detritus.

But, no QuickLook folder in ~/Library. The one in /Library is empty. Probably because I didn't set up any applications to use them. Maybe?

The QuickLook folder in /System/Library is full of files, but I don't think I'll touch them.

In any case, it seems like whatever DropBox is currently doing does not affect the problem at hand. It *does* make me wonder if a QuickLook extension of some kind should be activated for Finder.

 

[svenmany]

That's weird. Same situation for me. New Studio back in July, so no old operating system detritus.

But, no QuickLook folder in ~/Library. The one in /Library is empty. Probably because I didn't set up any applications to use them. Maybe?

The QuickLook folder in /System/Library is full of files, but I don't think I'll touch them.

In any case, it seems like whatever DropBox is currently doing does not affect the problem at hand. It *does* make me wonder if a QuickLook extension of some kind should be activated for Finder.

Don't look to QuickLook as the culprit of what's slowing down Finder. ForkLift supports QuickLook, so it would be slowed down too. Instead, consider Finder Extensions; these are unique to Finder and inapplicable to ForkLift.

 

[BKDad]

Don't look to QuickLook as the culprit of what's slowing down Finder. ForkLift supports QuickLook, so it would be slowed down too. Instead, consider Finder Extensions; these are unique to Finder and inapplicable to ForkLift.

View attachment 2284564

Ahh, but the only Finder extensions I find are those that are apparently installed by Ventura.

In any case, this doesn't seem to be the issue.

 

[svenmany]

Ahh, but the only Finder extensions I find are those that are apparently installed by Ventura.

In any case, this doesn't seem to be the issue.

--snip picture--

The picture you showed are Finder quick actions. Those are not the settings I was talking about. You're showing the "Finder" settings section which has the quick actions. Look further up and open "Finder extensions" settings.

If you have Dropbox installed and you're seeing checkmarks and other indicators on files which show their sync status, you should have a Dropbox entry in the "Finder extensions" section.

 

[svenmany]

I want to explain my reasoning why I don't think QuickLook is the cause of any problems and that the Dropbox Finder extension (or some other extension like it) might be.

QuickLook generators only get invoked when the user interacts with a particular file. The bug described in this thread is about a window with no files displayed at all. There's no opportunity for a user to interact with a file and trigger the functionality of a QuickLook generator.

On the other hand, the Dropbox Finder extension is responsible to alter the image of every file and folder presented - showing it with a checkbox or something else. It is very likely that the extension has to process every file and folder returned before the images show. That could easily cause a significant delay.

When Apple rolled out the cloud infrastructure for providers like Dropbox (maybe a year or more ago), people complained bitterly that they were no longer able to store their Dropbox folder on an external drive. Perhaps Dropbox has done some shenanigans to allow that to be supported and those shenanigans are the cause of the problem when listing content from external drives.

About the QuickLook generators - this is really a separate topic.

When Dropbox and OneDrive rolled out their changes to support Apple's new architecture, people complained bitterly that QuickLook no longer worked on those cloud based files. I suspect the Dropbox QuickLook generator some people have in ~/Library is attempting to remedy that. Probably, invoking QuickLook on a file in Dropbox lazily retrieves the selected file (if it's a remote only one) in order to display its contents.

QuickLook generators in /System/Library/QuickLook are installed by Apple and cannot be changed since that directory can't be modified by users. Software you install might install a generator in ~/Library/QuickLook if it is only intending the current user to benefit from it. The software would install it in /Library/QuickLook if it is intending all users to benefit from it. But, more typically, software just keeps its generator in its own application bundle.

 

[BKDad]

The picture you showed are Finder quick actions. Those are not the settings I was talking about. You're showing the "Finder" settings section which has the quick actions. Look further up and open "Finder extensions" settings.

If you have Dropbox installed and you're seeing checkmarks and other indicators on files which show their sync status, you should have a Dropbox entry in the "Finder extensions" section.

OK, my bad. But, here you can see why I made the error:

I see no Finder Extensions tab. I uninstalled Dropbox this morning.

 

[MacGizmo]

OK, my bad. But, here you can see why I made the error:

View attachment 2284709

I see no Finder Extensions tab. I uninstalled Dropbox this morning.

The problem is that we're running Sonoma, not Ventura. That's why you're not seeing the "Finder extensions" category that we are. We probably should have noticed we're in the Ventura Forum, not Sonoma.

 

[DinkThifferent]

I don't have dropbox and my finder is also slow with displaying large folders on my external drives. this didn't happen with Monterey on my 2019 iMac.

 

[HDFan]

I want to explain my reasoning why I don't think QuickLook is the cause of any problems

Given that Apple has acknowledged that it is a problem, is working on it and has no workarounds I have the same question.

 

[BKDad]

The problem is that we're running Sonoma, not Ventura. That's why you're not seeing the "Finder extensions" category that we are. We probably should have noticed we're in the Ventura Forum, not Sonoma

The problem is that we're running Sonoma, not Ventura. That's why you're not seeing the "Finder extensions" category that we are. We probably should have noticed we're in the Ventura Forum, not Sonoma.

According to the official Apple instructions on Extension settings (Change Extension Settings), Ventura is supposed to have that category as well.

In any case, it still seems like Apple rewrote something in Ventura that broke a characteristic previously working well in macOS. Whether that was done for a reason or accidentally, we'll almost certainly never know. Likewise, it's really doubtful that Apple will change this - why would they want to? That's not been their history. At least recent history.

 

[svenmany]

The problem is that we're running Sonoma, not Ventura. That's why you're not seeing the "Finder extensions" category that we are. We probably should have noticed we're in the Ventura Forum, not Sonoma.

I have that section on Ventura and Sonoma. The section probably goes away if there is no content.

 

[svenmany]

Given that Apple has acknowledged that it is a problem, is working on it and has no workarounds I have the same question.

Are you saying Apple has acknowledged that QuickLook is the cause of slowdowns when showing the list of files and folders in a folder? If so, could you provide some reference to that?

 

[wills11]

What's confusing in Sonoma is that there are two places where "Finder Extensions" are found:

1. Under Extensions, as a category, with individual apps listed below.
2. Under Extensions —> Added Extensions, as a checkbox listed below individual apps.

As you can see from my Settings, OneDrive is the former, while Dropbox uses the latter.

I, too, have a long wait with spinning "Loading…" message when opening folders with many files in Finder—which also began under Ventura. But when I use the Path Finder app (in either Ventura or Sonoma) it opens those same folders instantaneously.

 

[svenmany]

What's confusing in Sonoma is that there are two places where "Finder Extensions" are found:

1. Under Extensions, as a category, with individual apps listed below.
2. Under Extensions —> Added Extensions, as a checkbox listed below individual apps.

As you can see from my Settings, OneDrive is the former, while Dropbox uses the latter.

I, too, have a long wait with spinning "Loading…" message when opening folders with many files in Finder—which also began under Ventura. But when I use the Path Finder app (in either Ventura or Sonoma) it opens those same folders instantaneously.

On my computer, OneDrive and Dropbox are present in both sections. It's only in the "Finder Extensions" that the checkboxes are checked. It's very confusing.

I'm curious. Is there anyone who has never had a third-party Finder extension installed that is having this issue? Uninstalling such an extension is not a guarantee that some artifacts aren't still present and causing trouble.

 

[svenmany]

Another thing that would be interesting is whether the problem would persist on a brand new user account on the same machine.

 

[HDFan]

Are you saying Apple has acknowledged that QuickLook is the cause of slowdowns when showing the list of files and folders in a folder? If so, could you provide some reference to that?

No. The issue I understand they are working on is slow population of finder file lists.

Another thing that would be interesting is whether the problem would persist on a brand new user account on the same machine.

It does.

 

[titaniumdoughnu]

No. The issue I understand they are working on is slow population of finder file lists.



It does.

Do you have a link to any info on Apple acknowledging the slow population problem? I haven't been able to find any acknowledgment of this issue.

 

[HDFan]

Do you have a link to any info on Apple acknowledging the slow population problem? I

Nope. They rarely publicly acknowledge bugs.

You can call Apple Support and have them diagnose the issue, if you have it. When they send it to development then you might get the same response that I did - accepting no more tickets. I was surprised with the detailed response I received. Must have gotten a particularly good Support Engineer.

My feedback report on Ventura still shows as "open" and "recent similar reports none" which may or may not mean anything.

It is, unfortunately, a black hole.

 

[titaniumdoughnu]

Just found a new interesting test on these issues.

Add a folder to the dock, and set it to list mode. Can you navigate that folder structure from the dock with reasonable delays on opening subfolders? I think it's much faster than browsing in Finder or open/save boxes.

I'm still torn as to whether erasing the Dropbox quicklook plugin fixed this for me. The WORST lags are gone (20+ seconds) but I still often get 2-3 second delays on things that should be instant.

And accessing the folder structure from the dock is instant, as expected. Delays of like 0.25 seconds at max, usually no delay.

 

[BKDad]

Just found a new interesting test on these issues.

Add a folder to the dock, and set it to list mode. Can you navigate that folder structure from the dock with reasonable delays on opening subfolders? I think it's much faster than browsing in Finder or open/save boxes.

I'm still torn as to whether erasing the Dropbox quicklook plugin fixed this for me. The WORST lags are gone (20+ seconds) but I still often get 2-3 second delays on things that should be instant.

And accessing the folder structure from the dock is instant, as expected. Delays of like 0.25 seconds at max, usually no delay.

Amazing find! I get the same results as you describe.

I don't have Dropbox installed, and still have delays when looking with Finder and open/save boxes. For the latter, don't most apps go through some Finder function for browsing through files?

 

[ipaqrat]

This triggered a flashback <left eye twitches>. At the risk of being pedantic (or the certainty)... Once upon a time, when Pluto was still a planet, I had a problem like this. The issue turned out to be "Calculate Folder Sizes" in Finder preferences, which caused savage latency in large, deeply nested, directories. The setting was toggled on when I did an OS update, and took me hours to recognize.