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I have added a couple of network folders to the OS X finder sidebar as a shortcut. This is working great as long as I don't shutdown or restart the system. Once the system has been restarted they are no longer visible in finder sidebar. I have also added a Automator script that auto mounts my afp network drive on startup.

Why do network folders disappear? What can do?

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  • Is it an alias, or the network volume itself? If its a network volume. It will disappear when it disconnects. An alias is just a link to the share. That should not disappear.
    – user2720970
    Jul 8, 2016 at 9:11
  • It's a folder from a network volume which I dragged to the OS X sidebar.
    – howdytom
    Jul 8, 2016 at 9:55
  • Drag the folder from the share to your desktop (Hold CMD and Alt). Then add that alias to the sidebar
    – user2720970
    Jul 8, 2016 at 10:12
  • Fantastic! It's working as described. I have restarted 5x times and the the folder remains in the OS X Sidebar. If you could post that as answer, I will handover the bounty to you.
    – howdytom
    Jul 8, 2016 at 10:42
  • For reference: This also happens with external drives which are unmounted at a given time, causing all entries from that drive to disappear from the sidebar. The alias solution bellow worked for me (see my comment).
    – Maurice Schleußinger
    Feb 18, 2019 at 15:32

3 Answers 3

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Drag the folder from the share to your desktop (Hold CMD and Alt). Then add that alias to the sidebar

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    This did not work for me (macOS Sierra) - couldn't drop the alias into the sidebar. What worked was creating a symbolic link via ln -s /Volumes/Name ~/Desktop and dragging this into the finder sidebar.
    – psteinweber
    Apr 5, 2018 at 15:44
  • How to add an alias to the sidebar (dragging doesn't work): Go to Finder and highlight the alas, then go to File > "Add to Sidebar".
    – Travis
    Jun 25, 2018 at 18:21
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    ""Add to Sidebar" is greyed out for me if I have an alias selected.
    – JVC
    Jul 6, 2018 at 17:29
  • There is the "Make Alias" option in the context menu (right click) of any folder. You can then move the alias to a convenient location and drag it to the sidebar. I am using macOS 10.14 Mojave.
    – Maurice Schleußinger
    Feb 18, 2019 at 15:28
  • I highly recommend creating a symbolic link (ln -s), as @psteinweber mentioned, rather than a macOS alias. This allows you to access your network shares via a terminal from the same paths as Finder.
    – evan.bovie
    May 24, 2019 at 19:44
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I kept losing folders on an SMB share that I'd dragged to the Finder Favorites. They would stay for a day or two, then vanish. None of the solutions I found online seemed to help (reboot,

I found a way to make them stay there: Make an alias (with contextual menu) to the folder on the SMB share you want a link to. Drag the alias to your desktop. Drag the symbolic link to Finder Favorites. [Mac OS Sierra (10.12.3), MacPro6,1]

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  • Why resurrect a question with an accepted answer just to post the same answer again?
    – user11633
    Mar 21, 2017 at 19:21
  • Symlinks and aliases are different things. Currently (macOS 10.12.5) aliases cannot be used in Finder sidebar but symlinks can.
    – Szymon Bęczkowski
    May 23, 2017 at 18:23
  • Except that this answer does not actually mention anything about creating a symbolic link (though a comment on the accepted answer does), this was actually the correct answer for macOS Sierra. Aliases cannot be added to the sidebar, but the symlink can. Thanks for this!
    – JVC
    Apr 17, 2020 at 14:53
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I was also having an issue dragging aliases into the sidebar. I opened one of the aliases from the desktop, though, and then it would allow me to drop into favorites for some reason.

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