Cursor Does Not Open Any Folder On Mac

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

After reinstalling several times and clearing out any trace of cursor and even reinstalling the operating system with time machine cursor refuses to open any folder on mac you click open folder from the top bar or the start page and nothing happens. there is not pic for this because nothing happens.

Steps to Reproduce

click open folder

Expected Behavior

open folder dialogue with file tree to select folder

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Latest cursor
Latest Mac

For AI issues: which model did you use?

can’t even open the folder

Additional Information

use the latest mac and latest cursor and try and open a folder

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a weird one. The “Open Folder” dialog not showing up at all is unusual.

Here are a few things to try and check:

  1. Try opening a folder from Terminal. Open Terminal.app and run:

    cursor /path/to/some/folder

    Does that work?

  2. Try dragging a folder onto the Cursor icon in the Dock. Does it open?

  3. Check macOS permissions. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Files and Folders (and also Full Disk Access). Make sure Cursor is listed and enabled. If it is not there, try adding it manually.

  4. Try with extensions disabled. In Terminal, run:

    cursor --disable-extensions

    Then try “Open Folder” again.

  5. Exact versions. Can you share:

    • Your macOS version (Apple menu > About This Mac)
    • Your Cursor version (Cursor > About Cursor)

Since you restored from Time Machine, was this happening before the restore, or did it start after? Time Machine restores can sometimes bring back broken permission settings. You can try resetting Cursor’s privacy permissions with:

tccutil reset All com.todesktop.230313mzl4w4u92

Then restart Cursor.

Let me know what you find.

4

(base) MacBook-Pro:~ GoodDogAm$ cursor --disable-extensions

-bash: cursor: command not found

Those commands make it say cursor: command not foudn when I drag the folder on cursor it opens

Version: 2.4.37 (Universal)

VSCode Version: 1.105.1

Commit: 7b9c34466f5c119e93c3e654bb80fe9306b6cc70

Date: 2026-02-12T23:15:35.107Z

Build Type: Stable

Release Track: Default

Electron: 39.2.7

Chromium: 142.0.7444.235

Node.js: 22.21.1

V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0

OS: Darwin x64 25.3.0

mac os: 26.3 (25D125)

5

Good that dragging a folder onto the Dock icon works. That narrows it down. The issue is that the standard macOS file picker dialog is not showing up. This is most likely a permissions problem, especially after restoring from Time Machine.

A few things to try:

    1. Reset Cursor’s TCC permissions (this will likely fix it)
      Open Terminal.app and run:
    tccutil reset All com.todesktop.230313mzl4w4u92

    Then fully quit Cursor (Cmd+Q) and reopen it. macOS should ask for permissions again.

    1. Check or grant Full Disk Access
      Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access and make sure Cursor is listed and enabled. If it’s not there, click the “+” button and add Cursor manually from /Applications.
    1. Install the CLI to test with extensions disabled
      In Cursor press Cmd+Shift+P, type Install 'cursor' command, and run it. Then you can launch:
    cursor --disable-extensions

    After that try “Open Folder” again.

Start with step 1 using tccutil. It’s known that after a Time Machine restore, permission entries can come back in a broken state, and the “Open Folder” dialog depends on whether macOS lets Cursor use the system file dialog.

Let me know how it goes.