How can I get Network drive shortcuts added to the Finder sidebar in Mountain Lion?

I updated to Mountain Lion from Lion and I noticed that my network drives are no longer shown in Finder's sidebar under Devices.

Under preferences I have all checkboxes ticked. And when I click on "My MacBook Pro" I see the Network drives mounted but when I drag them to Devices (like I used to in Lion) they don't "stick".

Can I only get shortcuts by adding them to my favorites? And even there they get lost when I restart my computer.


Solution 1:

This is a bug in Mountain Lion for which there seems to be no fix as yet. If you eject the network folder then re-connect it will appear in the sidebar but next time you login it will be gone.

Solution 2:

Thanks for the answers. This is definitely a bug that hopefully Apple will fix!!

The solution that works for me (more of a workaround) is that you need to have a finder window opened before you mount any network shares.

  1. Drag your network shares to the 'Devices' section in the sidebar (they wont stick this is ok for now)
  2. Close all programs and windows
  3. Open a new Finder window ⌘N (doesnt matter where)
  4. Log off then log in again (you dont need to reboot)
  5. Viola!

(On some machines with lots of startup items, I dragged 'Macintosh HD' into the list before any items to mount shares.)

This has worked for me on multiple ML machines using regular SMB shares, and software managed shares (AvidISIS).

Unfortunately you still do need to remember to keep a finder window open when you shutdown. But in our case most machines stay on, and if I have to reboot or i suffer a crash then it takes less than 20 seconds to open a finder, log off and log back on again. Small price to pay to have the rest of the day with a usable sidebar :p

Credit to rizion216 for finding the workound

Solution 3:

Here is the fix:

Mac OS X can open or execute designated login items immediately after you log in to your computer. To make a server connection a login item, follow the steps below:

Note: After following the below steps and the "Connect to Server" dialog box appears on startup, type your name and password, or choose Guest access, then click Connect. Make sure to remember the credentials in your Keychain if you don't want to be asked for the login and password every time.

For Mac OS X v10.4, v10.5, and v10.6 and apparently 10.8 (tested it myself April 2013)

From the Finder menu, choose Preferences. Under "Show these items on the Desktop,"enable the option for "Connected servers."

Connect to the server volume(s) you would like to automatically mount at login. Open System Preferences.

Select the Accounts preference pane

Under your user: Click the Login Items tab. Drag the volume(s) from the Finder into the Login Items list in the System Preferences window.

Log out and log in again. Wait about 5-20 seconds for it to show up in the side bar.

Taken from http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4011?viewlocale=en_en