When the location falls back to a mounted drive

Normally your accounts, Home folder and devices appear under Locations in Finder's sidebar. On the rare occasion that can't start, Storage Studio doesn't leave you without your files: it mounts a fallback drive with the same folders instead. The only real difference is where you find it, because the fallback drive isn't listed in Finder's sidebar.

How to tell you're on the fallback drive

Open Remotes & Accounts (Connect Accounts… in the More menu, or Cloud Accounts… in the popover) and choose the Mounting tab.

• The status line says Mounted as “Storage Studio” instead of On — in Finder under Locations, as “Storage Studio”.
• A note underneath says: "This is the fallback drive — Finder doesn't list it under Locations, so open it with the button below." It also shows where the drive is.

Why it happens

Storage Studio starts the Finder location each time it opens. It switches to the fallback drive when the location can't be set up, for example when the part of Storage Studio that serves your files to Finder doesn't start, or macOS refuses to add the location. If macOS is still running an older copy of that part right after an update, Storage Studio ends the old copy and tries again a couple of times before it falls back.

Your files are the same either way. Nothing is moved or copied when it falls back.

Reaching your files

%% caption: What to do when the location has fallen back to a mounted drive
flowchart TD
  A[The Mounting tab says this is the fallback drive] --> B[Click Open the Drive]
  B --> C[Finder opens the fallback drive with all your folders]
  A --> D{What do you need?}
  D -->|The drive misbehaves| E[Click Remount / Repair to rebuild it]
  D -->|The Finder location back| H[Quit and reopen Storage Studio]
  H --> I[It tries the Finder location first on launch]

1. Click Open the Drive on the Mounting tab. Finder opens the fallback drive.
2. Or use the Finder button at the top of the main window, which opens whichever one is in use. See The Finder button in the main window.
3. To keep it handy, drag the drive's folder into Finder's sidebar under Favorites.

Getting the Finder location back

• Quit Storage Studio and open it again. It tries the Finder location first every time it starts, and only falls back if it still can't start.
• While you're on the fallback drive, Remount / Repair on the Mounting tab rebuilds that drive from your current accounts and devices. Use it if a folder is missing or the drive stops responding.
• If the location stopped responding, the status says "The cloud drive stopped responding. Use Remount / Repair to start it again."

What's different on the fallback drive

• It isn't in the sidebar. Use Open the Drive or the Finder button.
• Keep opened files on this Mac offers Forever when the fallback drive's downloads are kept on your external drive. See Keep opened files on this Mac.
• Take care in Home. In the Finder location, the folders in Home that hold your moved apps and Storage Studio's own files are protected. On the fallback drive, don't rename or delete anything in those folders. See The Home folder in the Finder location.

See also: The Storage Studio location in Finder · The Storage Studio location is missing from Finder · Something's not working: start here