This article explains how to show or hide the sidebar, add or remove items from the sidebar, and reorder the items displayed in the sidebar in Finder in Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2) and later.

Beginning with OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and later releases of the macOS operating system, you can hide or show the Finder sidebar for easy access to folders and locations. To hide or show the Finder sidebar, follow these steps:

Open a Finder window by selecting the Finder icon in the Dock.

By default, the Finder displays a sidebar when it opens. If you prefer to hide the sidebar, from the Finder menu bar, select View > Hide Sidebar.