… or maybe I’m just not holding my mouth the right way
After wrangling with this issue, contacting AppleCare w/o resolution, I’m here, hat in hand, presenting the issue to y’all for your sage advice
Please forgive the lengthy post - I hail from the “Long-Winded” Tribe
OK, so, I admit I’m a Tag-aholoic - I use Finder Tags extensively, every day. Some several macOS releases ago I created a Keyboard Shortcut (Cmd-Ctrl-A) to display the Tags… popup contextual menu when a Finder item was selected. Works great. Sometimes the system would ‘forget’ the shortcut and I found Force Quitting Finder restored it’s ‘memory’
And then along comes Tahoe 26.2 and, WOW, it sure has a short term memory !! And in more ways than one. (Tahoe 26.2 is the first Tahoe I installed). Since installing 26.2 on 01/12/2026, it’s ‘forgotten’ the shortcut over 160 times !!!
Several ‘accomplices to the crime’ have become evident:
1. Restarting ALWAYS results in forgetting
2. Using Spotlight usually, but not always, triggers it
3. Sometimes rears it’s head when opening a locally connected USB HDD
4. Sometimes just mouse-displaying the Finder > File menu triggers it too
I did a short test run booted in Safe Mode and, while it remembered the shortcut after loading, it resumed it’s misbehavior before long… before I started re-adding my normal array of ‘Startup Items’
System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts… doesn’t display a conflicting Alert icon for the shortcut I use. I changed the shortcut to something else but the ‘dementia’ persisted, so I switched it back to the one my muscle memory is accustomed to
One thing I noticed is the difference in Tahoe’s Finder > File > tagging menu item depending on whether the selected item is a file (or Folder Shortcut) (Tags…) or Folder (Customize Folder…). However, in practice, when the tagging shortcut is working, it works with both files and folders
The Display of Finder’s Sidebar is another casualty of this dementia
“Normal” behavior is to open new windows with or without the sidebar depending on whether or not the sidebar was displayed in the just previously opened window. Well, Tahoe 26.2 ignores that and regularly (not always) displays the sidebar even though I rarely display it… ‘bout the only time I use the sidebar is to edit my extensive Tags list, after which I dutifully hide the sidebar, open a new window, hide the sidebar again, then ‘normally’ subsequent windows open without it.
… Today, for whatever reason, it’s been particularly pernicious, opening nearly every window with the sidebar displayed… even the Trash!! Whereas, before today it was only an occasional manifestation.
Mac mini (2024) M4, Memory 24 GB, 1 TB internal SSD drive (only 2/3 ‘used’), macOS Tahoe 26.2 (25C56)
Thanks in advance for any feedback