Bridge won't recognize my files in Desktop or Documents! Help!

[PonyR]

Hi, 

I just updated my Bridge to the latest version and now it won't recognize any of the files on my Desktop or Documents. There are a LOT of files in both places. Can anyone tell me why this is happening and how can I fix this? Also, Bridges shows arrows on top of the Desktop and Documents folders. I've never seen that before. Yet if I click on either of these folders, it won't recognize even one file inside them. I've never had this issues before. Please help?

[gary_sc]

Well, all of this is great news. 

I'd be grateful if you'd pick one of my answers that best helped you and mark it correct.

Have a great rest of today and Memorial Day!

[Arthur Jacks]

Hello Gary, I am a bit  late following your suggestion but it worked perfectly, I  could not see any files in my Adobe documents  file though they were visible  in Finder but  your cure solved the issue immediatly, once you  have had the solution pointed out it seems so simple. Thanks very  much, my blood pressure is now back to a  normal level 🙂

[stanfr007]

i had this exact problem...setting the privacy settings as suggested did the trick after a mac restart. Annoying though, since my folders were just fine in Bridge 2019. I seem to recall that when opening the oilder bridge version, it gave a warning box asking "do you want to allow bridge to access your documents etc" but this dialogue did not appear when opening the newer version--not sure why. anyhow, glad i stumbled on this, it appears to be a recent issue...

[PonyR]

I am wondering what I need to do if I can't solve this issue through this support forum. Is this something to contact Apple about or does Adobe have some kind of customer service? I'm kind of confused as I've never experienced anything remotely like this before.

[PonyR]

Some great news! I was looking at one of those links you sent me, which mentions the Security & Privacy settings area, so I was looking around there, and I inadvertently found the solution to my issue! I clicked on "Files and Folders" on the left, and immediately Adobe Bridge shows up with a list of checkboxes under it, and everything was checked EXCEPT Documents and Desktop -- the last two boxes. So I checked Documents and Desktop, restarted Bridge, and ta-da, everything is there! HUGE sign of relief!!!! But I wouldn't have stumbled across this without your help so I THANK YOU very much for taking the time to help me. You are GREAT.

[johnf38772263]

Yea!!! This worked!!! Thanks a million. I've been pounding my head for the last 2 hours...

[aniaustin]

YES! This worked. When I first opened Bridge on my new Mac laptop running Monterrey, I was in a rush. I was asked and was irritated with more questions as to whether something could access my computer so I just said NO! I did not understand the repercussions! 

The privacy settings are exactly what I needed. I just have to say, I think this is one of the more obscure and irritating new features I have ever seen. Any idea what problem this is supposed to solve? 

[PonyR]

Gary, I inadvertently found the answer to the problem! But I wouldn't have found this without your help. I was looking at the Security & Privacy settings after looking at one of the links you gave me. Turns out that under "Files/Folders", the checkboxes for Documents and Desktop were unchecked. So I checked them and all is well now. Thank you very much for taking the time to help me.

[Lindsay Keats]

Hi PonyR- I am having the same issues..I have been using Bridge since it was introduced.  This is not something that customers should be having to fix. Adobe need to get this sorted out immediately rather than using people in the community (no disrespect to those trying their best to help)

I had someone from support do a remote access and their connection (from India) kept dropping out.

This is totally unacceptable

Best of luck

[PonyR]

I'll try your suggestion of creating a new folder to put this stuff in.

[gary_sc]

OK, I'm taking a guess here: Amongst the differences between Catalina and pre-Catalina is that it's possible that Catalina just doesn't want other applications to have access to things inside of the User's Folder. 

There's no full reason to use that as a repository of your images. Try using another folder like I suggested. It can be anywhere on your desktop, on your hard drive, just stay away from the User's folder.

[PonyR]

The thing is though that I can open all the files in the User's folder through Bridge except Desktop and Documents. Such as Downloads.

I was able to access every file on my computer using Catalina 10.15.1. Had no issue at all for the longest of time. Until I updated Photoshop and then Bridge. It wasn't until I did those things that I updated to Catalina 10.15.4.

To see what would happen, I moved a couple of the folders from Documents straight into the User's folder, including the folder that contains most of my images. Now I can open the files within those folders in Bridge, but Search doesn't work in them. For example, I have a few thousand images of dogs. But if I do a search in Bridge currently for "dog", only about 50 images show up, and none show up from the image folder. I use Search in Bridge all the time, so I need to to be able to access my entire computer since I have a lot of images. This is really perplexing.

[PonyR]

Bridge won't recognize anything on my Desktop, so I'm not sure how to make a new folder that isn't under my User account. I thought all files had to be under a User account.

[PonyR]

Here is a screenshot of a Finder window showing the contents of Documents. There are 8 folders in there. All are visible and accessible through the finder but Bridge acts like they aren't there.

[John B16B8]

That link is 404

[PonyR]

I also wanted to mention that I restarted my computer, restarted Photoshop and restarted Bridge too and I still cannot access my files. Pretty much all of my computer files and images are either in Documents or Desktop, so I absolutely have to find a way to fix this. I used Bridge all the time before this issue happened. By the way, I don't know if this helps or not, but I had problems with Bridge opening at all before I updated to version 2020. I had updated Photoshop and all of a sudden Bridge wasn't opening, so that's when I updated it to 2020. And that's when my problems started.

[kavsquires]

You saved my life, Gary!!!

Thank you.

[lindal79581415]

Hi Garyy,

Great answer! Very helpful! 

(Apparently, my lower-case "Y" isn't woking for this reply. Very Strange!)

Tanks!

[Lumigraphics]

Turn off iCloud storage of your Desktop and Documents.

[stephaniew24758820]

I am having the exact same issue with bridge and the small white arrows on the Desktop and Download folders. BEening using it ofr YEARS and all of a sudden last night, this issue arose.

I have read the entire chain below, tried all the steps and still the issue persists.

Has anyone found any solutions to this issue ????? 

[matthew_tapia · Accepted solution]

I also ran in to the same issue—inaccessible folders with a small arrow icon in the bottom corner of each folder. None of gary_sc's or PonyR's solutions worked for me. It turns out my issue was related to a Dropbox setting that automatically backs up my Desktop, Downloads, and Documents folders. The continuous connecting established by the backup was preventing Bridge from accessing the files. I changed the Dropbox setting and Bridge works fine. It's possible that similar automated functions for other programs that establish a continuous connection to folders could be preventing Bridge from accessing in a similar way.

Would have been great to read this a few hours before I figured it out, so hopefully this is helpful to someone else out there.

[konraderer]

Thanks, this could be key for me. What setting did you use? Did you have to make Dropbox stop syncing your files altogether? This is happening in folders that I don't sync to Dropbox so I'm trying to see if this applies to my case.

[子曄5E9A]

Right click Dorpbox icon—profile picture — Preference—backups —Manage backups—Adjust setting —change folders - unchecked related folders. Once you changed the settings those folders no longer sync via Dropbox 

[子曄5E9A]

First I apologize for wrong previous answer ,what I’ve found its just move your current error folder which is Desktop, Download and Documents folder to Dropbox folder in finder,  then the system will recreated new Desktop,Download and Documents folder automatically, what you should do is just move items in old folder to new folder and no need to change Dropbox setting and its worked well in Adobe bridge, I hope it will help you !

[LIDBKLYN]

I have been so frustrated for a long time when, after an update, the Adobe Bridge folder tree no longer corresponded to the location of files inside any of icloud synced Desktop/Document folders. Meaning that when I clicked a file/files from any of folders within icloud in Bridge Content window, the folder panel remains idel. Before, it would go to the location of that selected file. For whatever random reason, today, it finally occured to me to enable "Show Hidden File" under "View" dropdown manu. And, the problem was solved. It is a bit annoyed to see all the hidden files but, at least, now I can see where my file locates and can easily navigate to other folders directly on Folder Panel. I attached 2 settings for your reference if you encountered similiar issues and would like to give this solution a try. I am sure there is another way but, so far, I have not yet come across a solution without the clutters of hidden files. 

• System preference - priavcy - Files and folders

•  Bridge - View - Show Hidden Files