MacBook Finder Not Responding/ Locks Up with MacOS Sonoma 14? [Fix]

Many MacBook Air/Pro users after updating to latest Sonoma 14 are reporting issue that Finder is not responding and locks up for very long time. While for some MacBook user the Finder is not opening at all or keeps crashing on Sonoma. The Sonoma update seems to be buggy and the users are stuck with the issue.

The same when copy/move/trash items in usb disk. The Finder is locking. You have to wait almost 2 minutes for responding.

~user reported on Reddit

How to get rid of locked up Finder

The Finder issue started after updating to Sonoma 14 and seen with Finder app only. While the Finder is frozen or locks up, you can kill the process from the terminal :

opening terminal and killing the Finder/dock:

ps -ax | grep -i dock             

(note the process id)

sudo kill -9 <dock process id>

Many reports from Apple forums suggest that the issue is linked to iCloud Drive. The finder in MacBook is crashing when iCloud Drive is enabled. Rebooting the MacBook does not seems to fix the issue.

If you are also facing the Finder bot launching issue on Sonoma then as a quick fix you should try to relaunch the Finder. To do that click on Option-click Finder in the Dock > Relaunch at the bottom

One solution that is fixing the MacBook Finder not working on Sonoma is to disabled rotating through Dynamic Wallpapers/Screensavers, i.e. set both of them to a static image.

Other than that after installing the Sonoma please wait for couple of days as lots of data is getting synched in the MacBook system as per new OS Sonoma. The Finder app may take sometime to load all items in the MacBook.

If you keep seeing the issue for long then you should report issue to Apple.