Icons keep moving in dock

my icons won't stay in position, everytime i arrange them they move back to their original positions within few seconds

I have seen this problem in 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, and now also in 10.7. Someone in another thread said it was cleared up by turning off syncing of Dock items. However I've seen this happen on machines that don't have Dock items set to sync or not signed into .mac, MobileMe or iCloud.
I've done mass deployments of all of the versions of OS X I listed above except for 10.7. I build a base image from a brand new Mac and then restore it onto multiple MacBooks and iMacs. I thought that the behavior happened only after the first boot after they had been imaged but I've seen it happen after installing new apps as well (mostly Microsoft Office: 2004, 2008 and 2011). And it is not at all consistant. Sometimes they would snap back seconds after they were moved and others would wait a minute or two. I always would move them back to how I wanted them and most times they stay the second time I've moved them but I've also had them snap back up to 3 times in a row before they finally stayed put.
It just happened to me a few minutes ago on my MBP running 10.7.3. I have no hope that this will be resolved.

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Mail icon keeps moving

All of the sudden my Mail icon keeps moving to the end of the dock. It won't stay in the spot I place it. I moved the file (com.apple.dock.plist) in the library as suggested by some other similar posts, but that doesn't seem to help. Any other thoughts?
Thanks

I did exactly as you described, locating the plist file and moving it from Library/Preferences to the desktop. I logged out, logged back in, and Mail started on the left side of my Dock and then promptly shot to the right. It is now to the left of a Google quick search box, an Applications Folder, a Documents folder, and a Downloads folder. I want the mail icon on the left side of my screen. How can I ensure that?

Macintosh HD icon keeps moving

My hard drive icon keeps moving on my desktop without me moving it.
Does anyone know what it's doing this?
thank you for any help or suggestions! Greatly appreciated.

I've found if I put any other icons too close to the hard drive icon it will move after a restart or shutdown but not after sleeping it. This will also happen if you put the hard drive icon too close to the edge of your screen.
If I keep other icons a 1/2" away I have no trouble (distance varies depending on your screen size).
Dale

Icons keep leaving my dock. I put them back and they leave again. How can I keep them on the dock?

icons keep leaving my dock. I put them back, and they leave again. How do I keep them on the dock?

Did you request that they be left in the Dock? To do this you activate the application and its icon will be in the Dock, click and hold on it, a pop-up menu will show near the icon and in it will be a menu with "Option" in it. Click on "Option" and you will find an item that will say "Keep In Dock", click on it and the icon will stay in the Dock. If you have done all this and the icon still goes away someone else will have to help you.
Andy

Icons Keep Moving

Hello. I have a 23" Cinema Display that I connect to at work with my MacBook Pro. Recently, I got a second 23" Cinema Display for home. Ever since, whenever I connect my laptop to either monitor, all of my icons rearrange. They usually move to the right side of my laptop, even though I have the monitors preferences set to have the 23" as the main display. Whenever I try to move the icons, they snap back into place. And, when I click once on any icon and then click on the desktop, that icon moves to a new, seemingly random, location.
I know there are options to organize icons by name, date, etc. and I am assuming that I selected one of those preferences. But, I do not see an option to organize by "none." How can I keep my icons from constantly relocating?
Thanks, Greg

The "none" option doesn't actually get rid of the "snap to grid" option (which is now something you can't turn off for the Desktop, just set the spacing for with the second slider). However, when you first change from some 'arrange by' order to "none," the current "snap to grid" setting isn't immediately enforced & the Desktop items may revert to some former locations, including (I think) those set while the OS allowed the "snap to grid" option to be turned off. I suspect this is what was happening to you.
Had you followed setting the "none" option with even the slightest nudge on the grid spacing slider, you would have seen the icons jump to that spacing. The same would have happened with the icon size slider, since either one would have applied the view option settings immediately.
The same would have been true if you had relaunched the Finder, logged out & back in, or restarted the Mac, which is what you did.
The jumping around icon thing was I think the result of the Finder "noticing" that the selected icon wasn't on a current grid intersection & 'helpfully' moving it to one.
Anyway, the main point is that should it happen again in the future, you can fix this just by nudging the grid spacing slider. You don't have to restart or log out.

Icons keep moving to the upper right corner - a Finder relaunch fixes it but only for a short while

I'm having an issue that really irks me and it's very frustrating. Whenever I open certain programs (ie. iPhoto, Pixelmator, Safari (sometimes)) and I click to the desktop to either drag a file in or drag one out to the desktop, all the icons start gathering in the upper right hand corner on top of the Hard Drive icon. No matter where I try to drag them, they all snap right back on top of the Hard Drive. Now, I can stop this by option clicking and holding on the Finder dock icon and selecting Relaunch. I can also turn "sort by" to none, but I am a little OCD and I like to have my icons snap to a grid. Here's another vital piece of information. I use my computer at work on an external monitor connected by the Thunderbolt port (an HP monitor) using a DVI adapter. However, this occurs with or without using the external monitor. I noticed this program started happening about 2 months ago after I swapped out hard drives (upgraded size) going from 500GB to 750GB. I used carbon copy cloner to clone my hard drive as opposed to going with a fresh install. I'm beginning to think this may have been a bad idea. I have trashed all the Finder preferences, used Onyx to clear the .DS_stores and other tricks found on the internet. Does anyone have a concrete way to fix this? I am baffled with this one. I've never seen this problem until recently. Any ideas?

- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.
If still problem, make an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store since it appears you have a hardware problem.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar
Apple will exchange your iPod for a refurbished one for $99 fr a 16 GB 4G. They do not fix yours.
Apple - iPod Repair price

Safari keeps moving on dock??!

Safari wont remain in my dock even though its set as keep in dock, and when its open it moves to the very right end side every time i try to move it. Ive tried trashing dock preference list in user>library>preferences>com.apple.dock.plist but even after a reboot the same thing is happening.
I have read somewhere it might be to do with mobile me syncing dock items... which is not set to on so it cant be that. in fact its one of the only things i don't sync
Any other suggestions?

OK. Since the issue is specific to your original user account, you can proceed in two ways. One is to log into your new account, make a list of the preference files (plists) located in /username/Library/Preferences/, including any in the ByHost subfolder, log back into the original account, move everything on that list into a newly created folder on the Desktop, log out and back in, and see if the problem goes away. If so, you can copy the ones in the Desktop folder (one at time) back into /Preferences/, restart, and see if the problem returns. If so, you've identified the corrupt/conflicting one. Continue with all of them until isolating the bad ones. That'll save you the trouble of resetting preferences.
The second way is much more detailed and I'll not burden you with the steps unless the above doesn't fix the issue.

Menu bar icons keep moving/scrolling/flashing

Not sure exactly how to describe the problem concisely. The menu bar icons appear, then disappear, and then only two icons reappear (OpenDNS and VirusBarrier), then they disappear and the sequence starts again.
Computer is a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard and is up to date. Thinking that it might be simply that I had too many icons for the real estate on my smallish monitor, I tried removing menu icons to make room by unticking their boxes in some of their system preferences and also be dragging them off the menu bar with command-drag, but problem will not go away. Rebooting did not solve the problem either. I have also repaired permissions. Any suggestions are welcome.

Corrupted .plist file.
Get yourself OnyX for OS X, it will come in handy for that and other things that go bump in the night.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/

Desktop Icons keep moving when I turn of compiter

I want to know how to solve this issue, it is driving me crazy. I have to reset my desktop icons everytime I turn my computer back on. They seem to just move when I turn computer off. I am not that computer savy so I can't seem to find an answer anywhere. Thank you for all the help

Hi,
Please right click a blank space on desktop then click View an setup similar to the following image:
Regards.
BH
**Click the KUDOS thumb up on the left to say 'Thanks'**
Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.

Why do my windows and icons keep moving position?

I have my windows arranged so that I know where they will open, and the icons within ordered how I like them, and a few nice images in the backgrounds of the windows. So far so good. Since the Lion upgrade, and still with 10.7.1, when I close and reopen a window, it invariably reopens in a different place on the screen, the wrong size, with all the icons rearranged and the background image removed. It's driving me crazy. These are the very basics and if Lion can't get something so simple right, I despair.
I've tried reinstalling, but it hasn't improved matters.
And don't get me started on the Lion version of Safari and it's wonderful way of displaying various fonts as boxed A's, or the amazing full screen experience that displays a screen full of linen on monitor number 2.
Lion - a step backwards in every respect. Refund please.

Automatic Downloads.
How To > http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4539
Troubleshoot > http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3688
SYNCING with iTunes
See here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386

HD icon keeps moving

My Macintosh HD icon usually sits at the top right corner of the screen. When I log in from another user's desktop, the icon appears close to the bottom right corner.
I can live with this but wonder if it's a manifestation of something more sinister going on. (I don't know if there's a connection but my Mac has crashed regularly ever since I upgraded from OS9; this usually happens after waking from Sleep mode.)

Cheapster,
Dale is correct, Cheapster, and you may also find that by going to your View Menu in your top Apple menus when in Finder that if you click on "Show View Options" that if you decrease the size of the icons to 48 x 48 or smaller that this may help also.
best,
littleshoulders [:-)

Refresh icon keeps on moving on expanding year refinement.

Hi All,
Year refinement was coming as 2,006.00 because in metadata we took it as number.since it was year name I changed it to string and ran initial load but now year refinement is not displaying anything.The refresh icon of endeca keeps on rotating on clicking year.Does anyone know why refresh icon keeps on moving on expanding year refinement.
Thanks and Regards,
Amrit

Advice from a fellow lefty:
I rarely use the toolbar icons. To much movement. Command key shortcuts are the way to go.
For refresh: use Command/R keys.
Move to the Address Window Command/L
Search window command/option/F
Bookmarks Manager Command/Option/B
and on it goes....

Dock Icons Keep disappearing!

Last week I took all the icons out of my dock leaving only 5 icons, Finder, Mail, Safari, iChat, and Trash. After some time, I tried putting the default icons back in the dock because I was finding it hard to launch apps like iTunes from spotlight or finder. I finished putting my icons back inn place and after 30 seconds, the icons start disappearing in their own! first it went back to 7 icons and then back to the first 5. I tried reinstalling Leopard, restarting my mac and resizing the dock many times but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To restore the dock to its original state with original icons goto:
'user' > Library > Preferences
Delete the two files:
com.apple.dock.db
com.apple.dock.plist
Open terminal and type (with caps and space):
Killall Dock
The dock will now be in mint condition.
Hope this helps.

The Finder Icon "jumped" off my dock..how do i get it back?

Hi. I just got my new MacBook earlier today and I was moving some of the dock icons around and somehow the Finder icon "jumped" off the dock and is now no longer selectable. It just sits on the desktop and hovers above all other programs but behind the dock. I can't click on it or move it or even select it using the lassoo, so any ideas what I could try? Or anybody have a clue what happened/has this happened to anyone before?
here's a picture:
It's not like it's something I could've manually removed. I've tried moving the finder before and you can't do it. (this isn't my first OS X mac)
I'm just as baffled as you are.
MacBook 2.0 GHz 13.3" Mac OS X (10.4.7)
iMac G4 17" Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Try trashing this preference file and reboot.
HD > User > Library > Preferences > com.apple.dock.plist
-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
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Iphoto icon bounces in the dock but doesn't open

iphoto icon bounces in the dock but doesn't open

Hi Terence, I hope you can help me too. I have a problem with opening iPhoto. It has always worked fine but now as soon as I click on the icon in the Dock or connect my camera I get the enclosed screen (see below). I have tried to re-install from iLife 11 Install Disk with no joy. I have moved my plist file to Trash. Any further suggestions please will be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Brian
Process:         iPhoto [240]
Path:            /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Identifier:      com.apple.iPhoto
Version:         ??? (???)
Build Info:      iPhotoProject-5270000~1
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [90]
Date/Time:       2012-03-27 13:00:05.482 +0100
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version: 6
Interval Since Last Report:          155049 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           6
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   6
Anonymous UUID:                      413183FB-E0A0-4D96-A97D-68916344CB13
Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0
Dyld Error Message:
Library not loaded: /Library/Frameworks/iLifePageLayout.framework/Versions/A/iLifePageLayout
Referenced from: /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Reason: image not found
Binary Images:
0x8fe00000 - 0x8fe4162b dyld 132.1 (???) <39AC3185-E633-68AA-7CD6-1230E7F1CEF4> /usr/lib/dyld
Model: MacBook2,1, BootROM MB21.00A5.B07, 2 processors, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GHz, 2 GB, SMC 1.13f3
Graphics: Intel GMA 950, GMA 950, Built-In, spdisplays_integrated_vram
Memory Module: global_name
AirPort: AirPort Extreme, Atheros 5416: 2.1.14.6
Bluetooth: Version 2.4.5f3, 2 service, 19 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Built-in Ethernet, Ethernet, en0
Network Service: AirPort, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: WDC WD3200BEVT-11ZCT0, 298.09 GB
Parallel ATA Device: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA
USB Device: Built-in iSight, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x8501, 0xfd400000 / 3
USB Device: USB2.0 Hub, 0x05e3 (Genesys Logic, Inc.), 0x0608, 0xfd100000 / 2
USB Device: USB2.0 Hub, 0x05e3 (Genesys Logic, Inc.), 0x0608, 0xfd140000 / 5
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USB Device: Hub, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x9102, 0xfd141000 / 6
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USB Device: IR Receiver, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x8240, 0x5d200000 / 2
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Icons keep moving in dock

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