When I download something from any Browser, exsisting files on my mac appear greyed

Question

I am relatively new to macOS and have to download many files daily as part of my job.

When I download anything, existing filenames in the finder window are greyed out and it's very hard to read the file names.

Here is how it looks like when I download something

Here is how normal finder window looks like

I usually have to replace the old files with new versions. For example, an updated PDF report where an old file is outdated but a new file has a slightly different name so I manually need to click on the old file to replace it with a new file.

I was able to fix it somehow from settings on new Mac but new update few weeks ago runied it. In Settings > Privacy > "Full Disk Access" Chrome and all major browsers I tried are allowed full access - that's what Google suggested.

Answer 1

The 'greyed out' files are entirely normal behaviour for file dialogs.

In an Open file dialog, greyed files are those that cannot be selected for opening, e.g. the wrong file type for the application.

In a Save file dialog, files are greyed out, because similarly, they are not for 'selecting'; you're adding something else to them.

If you want to overwrite an existing file, you can click on a file, and its name will be placed in the text field for the filename.

There is no way of changing this behaviour (that I know), so I'm surprised when you say you were able to 'fix it'. Perhaps Reducing Transparency or Increasing Contrast in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display might help. I can't see how giving a Browser Full Disk Access would help.

There are of course different viewing styles: Icon, List, Column, etc, which might make it easier to identify the files.