FinderSync extensions gone in macOS settings

I simply have to create another post, just to show how rather ridiculous this situation with Finder Sync extensions settings missing in Sequoia has become, just because an event triggering me to make this post happened while I was typing the other responses above. And it perfectly fits into the title (and the subject) of this discussion.

So, I have an application, which embeds a Finder Sync extension. The application is distributed in three different variants: non-sandboxed, sandboxed and Mac App Store (MAS) version. When I update the application, I roll updates for all three variants (naturally, MAS version takes a bit longer to become available, due to review process).

The previous update happened on September 6, 2024, before Sequoia was officially released. I had no problems with the review process, the submission was reviewed and accepted very quickly.

Today I wanted to update the application, and I did so for the MAS variant as well. It was in the review process for a couple of hours, when I started typing two very long responses, which you can see above. While typing the second one, I received an email from Apple Store Connect review team, telling me that "there's an issue with my submission". And what the issue is, I will fully quite here (with some bold emphasis of my own):

Guideline 2.1 - Performance - App Completeness

Issue Description

The app exhibited one or more bugs that would negatively impact App Store users.

Bug description:

Finder extension does not appear in the System Preferences on macOS 15.

Next Steps

Test the app on supported devices to identify and resolve bugs and stability issues before submitting for review.

So now, according to the Apple Store Connect reviewer, the Finder Sync extensions settings missing from System Settings in Sequoia is a bug in MY application! I can't imagine that it can get more ridiculous than this!

Or does that mean Sequoia isn't even supposed to support Finder Sync extensions and the fact they work in it is just a lucky coincidence?

@Kevin, I understand that your "role is primarily about communicating with us, not bring information "back" to Apple. While you can and do work very closely with your engineering teams, that's not your primary role". But please, I would appreciate very much if you can do anything to increase the priority of this one. I think all this doesn't help either users, or developers and in retrospect, it doesn't help Apple either. And such review from qualified (I would hope) reviewer from Apple really drags down the confidence in the chosen platform to develop for (macOS) and people supporting it from the company creating and maintaining the platform.

Thank you very much in advance.

Okay, I don't care about "the best" extension, I care about ones, which do the job they're intended to do.

Yea I mean, that's an opinion. So much archived documentation. Think this thread got a little off-topic from the initial reported issue.

>Recent Similar Reports: Less than 10 >Resolution: Potential fix identified - For a future OS update

This sounds encouraging, I only wonder what a "potential fix" really means, how huge that potential is?

Yeah I don't understand why they have to speak to us in riddles. They either added the section back in System Settings and it'll be fixed in the next update, or they did not. There is not really anything in between here (though I recognize in more complicated cases you may not know with 100% certainty whether a bug is fixed or not). I don't see a fix mentioned in the Beta release notes, though.

So now, according to the Apple Store Connect reviewer, the Finder Sync extensions settings missing from System Settings in Sequoia is a bug in MY application!

Ouch. It's been hard lately to get maintenance updates through App Review on the Mac App Store lately. Extremely frustrating.

It's a real bummer when you hit a system bug that blocks you from doing what you need/want to do and you have no idea if/when they'll ever fix it. Some bugs are so bad you'd assume they just fix them right away but you would often be wrong. They broke AVSpeechSynthesizer in iOS 17 and never fixed it (maybe they did in iOS 18 but I don't think I want to use that API anymore..given how they treated apps using it). I thought for sure they'd fix AVSpeechSynthesizer quickly because so many apps use it, but they didn't. Never got a response back on my bugs. TSI quickly got shut down with "no workaround available." A similar story. I got plenty of stories.

You'd think a change that removes an entire preferences section would be easy to revert and would be fixed quickly. You got apps in the Mac App Store now that when purchased, can't work. Apple hasn't pulled all the Finder Extension apps from the Mac App Store. Presumably a bug that would cause users to purchase a non-functioning app (on Sequoia) at no fault to the developer would be considered a priority.

If we added the total downloads of every app on the Mac App Store together we're still probably less than Facebook so our prospects are looking pretty grim here.

I'm just learning about FinderSync and decided to start up a test project, ran straight into this issue with Sequoia today. If I file a Feedback Assistant, should I reference https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/feedback/15249290 ?

If Apple is going to remove/deprecate, just let us know so we can stop banging our heads against the wall. 😵‍💫

A good read on how these settings have "changed" over the years.

https://fileutils.com/blog/sync-my-finder/6

macOS 15.1 was officially released one or two days ago. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly though, this issue (stated in the subject line of this thread) is not fixed. Finder Sync extensions setting is still missing from the System Settings application. And heaven knows if and when it will be back. Like the poster above said straightforwardly…

If Apple is going to remove/deprecate, just let us know so we can stop banging our heads against the wall

I'd just add, and not waste our time, effort, nerves and other resources on doomed technology. I really don't remember any Apple's API/Framework/library being treated like this by it's mother company, without any prior warning of being deprecated and stop working.

I just want to mention again that my application is still in the review process on Mac App Store (MAS), ten days after the submission. After initial response that "Finder extension does not appear in the System Preferences on macOS 15" (oh really, doesn't it?!) and after I explained to reviewers the situation, pointing them to dozen resources, including FB15249290 and this thread, and also explaining how to enable/disable extensions using pluginkit, I got a response that after rejection, my application got back into "In Review" status and that…

Your submission’s review will require additional time as we take this new information into account. We do not require any further information at this time. Once we have thoroughly reviewed your submission, we will either contact you in App Store Connect to communicate any issues found, or your submission will be approved.

Ten days have passed since. I don't know if other developers submitting applications with embedded Finder Sync extensions experience the same. Maybe they've given up on MAS… MAS is now full of application which all of a sudden became potentially nonfunctional.

I'm fully aware this is not the right place to ask this question, but I'll risk it anyway… Does anyone know if one can send messages and ping MAS reviewers while the application is in "In Review" status? There's no "Reply to App Review" option, available during "Rejected" status, only "Cancel Submission" is available.

SO, there have been a lot of different issued raised and I've got limit time to reply on this, so I'm going to focus on the details that I think can be most useful.

macOS 15.1 was officially released one or two days ago

As you might imagine, the process of managing releases is extremely complicated, but the basic "pattern" is that which bug fixes will be included in a given release heavily depends on the particular focus of that release, how much time is left in it's test cycle, and how risky the fix is considered. Those factors mean that it's common that a fix cannot be included in a given release because any new fix is considered to risk late in the beat cycle.

Note that a similar pattern also happens when a build is early in the seed/release process so, for example, I would expect additional bug fixed to be included in macOS 15.2 (24C5057p). Related to that point, significant testing occurs between the time a given build is created and when it's released as a seed build. It's not unusual for a fix that will be included in the "next" seed release to have already been integrated well before the "current" seed is actually released.

All of this is to try and explain why the fact that the fix was not included in 15.1 or 15.2 (24C5057p) does not mean the bug isn't being addressed.

Yeah I don't understand why they have to speak to us in riddles.

In terms of the App Review rejection, there are a few things I want to clarify:

So now, according to the Apple Store Connect reviewer, the Finder Sync extensions settings missing from System Settings in Sequoia is a bug in MY application!

In general, App Review's testing is user oriented. That is, they're using your app as a typical user would and reporting any problem they find. There role isn't really to determine why a particular failure occurred, it's to report any problem they find.

@Kevin, I understand that your "role is primarily about communicating with us, not bring information "back" to Apple. While you can and do work very closely with your engineering teams, that's not your primary role

While I hope you don't find yourself dealing with this sort of situation again, for future reference, the best thing you can do for an App Review issue like is appeal that rejection and, as part of that rejection, provide as much information as possible back to the reviewer, particularly conversation like this thread and the names of any Apple employees who might have been involved (in this case, "me"). Apple takes privacy very seriously and that extends to information about developers, the bugs they file, and the apps they work on. It's much easier for App Review to contact me about a review issue with a particular app than it is for me to try and track down an app that's been rejected based on bug report information. I was able eventually able to track down your submission and made sure the relevant teams understand exactly what's going on.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

@DTS Engineer Kevin, thanks a lot for eventually tracking down the submission, your intervention apparently helped to get the application approved only a few hours after I got notified about this message. I was absent during the weekend and didn't get to thank you earlier.

I didn't really wanted to bother you with that, I assume you're hands are full even without me whining.I was only wondering if there is/was any way to contact the review team, while the application status is "In Review".

Once again, a huge thanks for getting the approval so quickly!!!

All of this is to try and explain why the fact that the fix was not included in 15.1 or 15.2 (24C5057p) does not mean the bug isn't being addressed.

Following up on this, the FinderSync UI should be visible in current (released today) beta, macOS 15.2 beta 2 (24C5073e). Please take a look and, if there are any issue, please file a bug and post the bug number here.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

Thanks a lot Kevin and all the team. Can confirm the option is there in the beta and works properly and even the FIFinderSyncController.showExtensionManagementInterface() brings the expected panel again.

@DTS Engineer Kevin, I've just installed 24C5073e and I can confirm both Finder Sync and File Provider extensions show in now joined subsection titled "File Providers". I like the new title, the previous one (in old System Preferences application) was "Finder Extensions", which was a bit confusing, since there was (and still is) a separate "Finder" subsection.

[FIFinderSyncController showExtensionManagementInterface] also works, showing the correct sheet in the System Settings window.

Thanks a lot for pushing this and for right satisfactory resolution! 👍🏻

I can confirm both Finder Sync and File Provider extensions show in now joined subsection titled "File Providers".

Good. I couldn't easily test this yesterday so my post was based on build numbers, not direct testing. That always makes me a little bit nervous...

Thanks a lot for pushing this and for right satisfactory resolution!

You're very welcome but most of the credit should go to the engineering team. They've always treated it as a serious issue that needed to be fixed as quickly as possible. They immediately scheduled it to be included in 15.2 and only missed being included in beta 1 because of the exact build we chose to release.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

I am experiencing another issue with my FinderSync extension. When I run my app from TestFlight, I cannot run it on Xcode. Xcode displays 'waiting to attach,' but the extension never starts. Before running my app on TestFlight, the extensions worked fine in Xcode. Has anyone encountered the same issue? It seems to be conflict between Xcode version and Testflight version.

By design, you cannot attach the debugger to any "release signed" build, which includes TestFlight as well as app store releases. If you want to test a particularly app version using the debugger, then you can export a developer signed build form the organizer. See the article "Testing a release build" for more details.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

Please close this issue since it’s fixed now and it’s going off topic.

We experienced a similar issue with Finder Extensions, which was resolved in one of the 15.2 beta versions (unfortunately, I can’t recall the exact version, but I believe it was beta 4).

However, after installing 15.2 RC (24C98) today, it seems the problem has resurfaced. We use extensions to show additional items in the context menu, and they are missing again.

This is still a problem in macOS 15.2 24C101. I just got a 1 star review on the App Store because of this...

However, after installing 15.2 RC (24C98) today, it seems the problem has resurfaced. We use extensions to show additional items in the context menu, and they are missing again.

Just to be clear, your FinderSynce extension is not showing up in the "File Provider" section, correct?

If that's the case, then please file a new bug and post the bug number back here.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

My mistake, it is in the File Providers section now. I was expecting it to be in the "Finder Extension" section like it used to be. My instructions for users now need to be updated for macOS 15.2.

The Finder extension section now appear to be, what used to be called "Quick Actions"