Large folders appear a page at a time

Some folders in your cloud accounts hold thousands of files. In the Storage Studio location, Storage Studio hands a big folder to Finder in pages rather than in one huge batch, and it remembers what was in folders you've opened, so going back to them is quick. Only the list of names, sizes and dates is fetched, never the files themselves.

The first time you open a big folder

Your account has to send the whole list of what's in the folder before Finder can show it, so the first visit to a very large folder can take a while. How long depends on the account. Storage Studio waits for the full list instead of giving up partway, so Finder doesn't sit on "Loading…" for good.

Once the list arrives, Storage Studio passes it to Finder a page at a time, in the page size Finder asks for, so no single hand-over is huge.

Coming back to a folder

Storage Studio keeps the listings of the folders you've opened most recently. When you open one again:

1. Finder shows the saved listing straight away.
2. Storage Studio fetches a fresh listing in the background.
3. If anything changed, Finder is told about just the differences, so new files appear and removed ones disappear without a full reload.

%% caption: How a folder in the Storage Studio location is listed
flowchart TD
  A[You open a folder] --> B{Has it been opened before?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Finder shows the saved listing at once]
  C --> D[A fresh listing is fetched in the background]
  D --> E{Did anything change?}
  E -->|Yes| F[Finder gets just the changes]
  E -->|No| G[Nothing more to do]
  B -->|No| H[The listing is fetched from the account]
  H --> I[Finder receives it a page at a time]

Changes made somewhere else

If a file is added to an account from another device or the web, Finder needs to hear about it. For folders you've opened recently on most account types, Storage Studio checks for changes in the background about every 15 minutes. On storage that charges for each request, it doesn't check in the background, because every check would cost you money; changes show up when you open the folder.

Tips

• A first visit to a folder with many thousands of items is the slowest it will ever be. Give it time; later visits are quick.
• If a folder seems out of date, open it again. A fresh listing is fetched each time.
• If Finder shows nothing at all for the location, see The Storage Studio location is missing from Finder.

See also: Thumbnails, and why some accounts show plain icons · Keep opened files on this Mac · Why Storage Studio works slowly on purpose