Stacks and Folder Icons in the Dock

Oh my God, this is horrible! I just want to see a FOLDER in my dock to represent my Applications folder or any other folder I drag there. I don't want it to update, placing an icon of whatever it finds at the top level of the folder instead. Why would I want to see my address book twice on the Dock? I don't want to see any of the items in a folder, just the folder.
Is there a tool out there to fix this?

I completely concur. We ought to have a choice. (I found this thread after finding myself in a state of disbelief in trying to adjust the appearance of standard folders ("Stacks"!) that I include in the dock.)
There's a work around suggestion below but I think that this needs to be fixed / embellished in a 10.5.1 update. I hope other users that concur will add their voices to the "feedback" link noted in this thread. Apple is historically pretty responsive to this kind of simple UI request, where there's wide support. We're not talking about a functional rewrite; just a user option.

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Keeping folder icon in the dock

Hi Everyone. Its been almost two years since I last owned a Mac now I just brought a MacBook Air 13inch and am absolutely loving it! however, how do I stop a folder icon in the dock from changing to an icon of the contents inside it. i had it set like that in my old mac but I cannot remember how to do it. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

Right click (or control click) on the folder and choose "display as folder" rather than "display as stack."

Application folder icon in the Dock has a thick red bar

The application folder icon in the Dock has a thick red bar across the top back. What does this mean? Assuming red is a negative indicator, how do I fix the issue?
Thank you.

Problem solved.
It was the top of a red icon in the folder (Adobe of course). Found this out by arranging by kind rather then name.
Feeling kind of red (faced) myself at this point.

Customized Folder icons in the Dock

There is a problem moving custom icons generated in 10.4. As one example, 10.4 Application and Home icons simply cannot be transferred to the 10.5 Dock without being badly distorted. They work properly but look terrible. The same thing happens with the custom icons that worked fine in 10.4 but do not appear properly in the Dock. I suspect there is a bug here that needs squashing

I don't think it is your custom icons that are the problem, anyway mine are all fine. If I make an alias of a folder with a custom icon and drag it to the Dock, the custom icon displays just as it always did. If I drag a file with custom icon the custom icon is fine. I suspect your problem is that you don't appreciate the full horror of the new Stacks behavior: if you drag a folder to the Dock Stacks does NOT, by design, display the icon of the folder. Instead it displays the icon of the first item that is IN the folder, plus some nonsense meant to represent the items behind the first item. Think this is insane? So does everyone else (with the possible exception of whoever came up with the idea of doing it this way). Send feedback to Apple:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/
And do a search on the topic "Stacks" for various kludgy work arounds.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Picture folder stack icons in the dock become folders after viewing

Hi Everyone
I have been using img2icon to make new icons for the document folders I keep in the stacks. I have changed the stacks settings to folders to show the icon. It looks good but when I view the stack and then put them down again, the icons go and are replaced by the folder icons.
Also wondering if anyone knows how to replace application icons in the dock?
Thank U
Stuart

I had a similar "issue"...a simple restart solved it.

I had question marks on a few of my icons in the dock of my imac, then went to find them in my applications folder and there is absoluteley nothing there!

I had a few question marks on my icons in the dock, then went to find them in the applications folder only to discover there is nothing in there???

Sorry, i just turned my computer on......I noticed the question marks only when i went to open photoshop only to discover i couldn't. Along with Illustrator and Bridge ......everything was working the day before with no hitches.

What's the deal with the 'stacks' icons in the dock?

I'm still getting used to stacks in the dock.
What I can't understand is why I have to look at icons that have nothing to do with the item?
My Applications folder stack shows the Address Book item on top and my Utilities folder stack shows the Activity Monitor icon on top.
I "get" it... this is a stack of items and that's the item on top - alphabetically based.
But it's ugly and not what I want. Since I'm always going to see the same icon, looking at the address book makes little sense. I'd prefer to see the Application folder icon or something more generic in its place.
Any good solutions or options?

I hope that Apple's designers wouldn't snort at this criticism. This is clearly a valid "usability" issue. What possible purpose could it serve to have the icon in the dock be determined by the alphabetical order of the contents of the folder (or any of the other sorting options for that matter). I found myself having to remember the order of my folders in the stacks area in order to figure out which to select. That's just wrong. The sorting is a valid purpose for when you click on the stack and it expands, but not for the icon in the dock. And showing just a sliver of the 2nd document or folder? What possible purpose can that serve? Even with icon size and magnification at max, you can't see enough of the folder content to be of any use. This is very unlike Apple, which spends so much effort getting every element of the GUI just right. I can only hope that this was just something that was done early in the design just to show that it could be done, but they just never got around to fixing it before the software was released. It is really annoying!
I've done the empty folder workaround. It's better, but still pretty pathetic.

How to retrieve the stacks icon on the dock?I accidentally put it in the trash.

how to retrieve the stacks icon on the dock?i accidentall put it in the trash.

Find the folder it linked to in the Finder and drag that to the right of the Dock's divider line. It'll most likely be either the Downloads or Documents folder in your home folder, which is accessible from the Finder's Go menu.
(79141)

I did a force close on Safari and after rebooting my macbook pro, i no longer see the Safari icon on the dock. How do i get i back?

I did a force close on Safari and after rebooting my macbook pro, i no longer see the Safari icon on the dock. How do i get i back?

If you can't get dragging to work, just click on Safari from your Applications folder, and it should appear in the dock. Then you can right-click on the icon and PIN it permanently there.

Hi, I was importing pictures into iPhoto from my sd card and suddenly iPhoto quit. Now it just won't open. When I click on the iphoto icon in the dock, nothing happens! Does anyone have a solution to this problem please?

Hi, I was importing pictures into iPhoto from my sd card and suddenly iPhoto quit. Now it just won't open. When I click on the iphoto icon in the dock, nothing happens! Does anyone have a solution to this problem please?

As a test launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import some photos and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it?
If it does then your current library has been damaged and should be repaired: apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Since only one option can be run at a time start
with Option #4 and then #1 as needed.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
2 - click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
3 - Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option.
4 - In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
5 - Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

Can I create an icon for a document in iCloud and place it in the dock for easy access?

I would like to create an icon for a spreadsheet that is stored in iCloud.and place the icon in the dock for easy access. This is possible with documents stored on the iMac. Thanks

How did you save Word documents to iCloud, Word will not do that so how did you? Did you use another application or maybe drop them in the Mobile Documents folder?
Please explain the how, then it may be easier to answer your question.

Using OS 10-6-8. For no apparent reason, mail refused to open and the icon in the dock changed and the application has disappeared except in iWork. Under Iwork, the message says: "yoou tried to open Mail version 4.5 (1084/1085) in: /Applications/iWork '06

Using OS 10-6-8. For no apparent reason, mail refused to open, the icon in the dock changed appearance and the application has disappeared except in iWork. Under Iwork, the message says: "you tried to open Mail version 4.5 (1084/1085) in: /Applications/iWork '06. Using OS 10-6-8. It can't be used on thius version of Mac OS X. Try opening the version of Mail located in the Applications folder..." How do I get back to mail and retrieve my existing messages?

You should consider downloading the 10.6.8 combo updater and applying it again.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399
Pondini has a great page about upgrading.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Combo.html

How do I add my Applications fold back onto the dock? People say I must drag it near the trash can, but that just puts it past that barrier. I am trying to get it back to where it disappeared from, on the left hand side near the finder icon.

How do I add my Applications fold back onto the dock? People say I must drag it near the trash can, but that just puts it past that barrier. I am trying to get it back to where it disappeared from, on the left hand side near the finder icon. And how / why did it disappear?

With respect, you actually cannot store folders on the left side of the Dock - only on the right side. I wonder if you're talking about Launchpad, which looks like a silver rocket and shows you your installed applications? It's not actually a shortcut to the Applications folder, though. You can certainly drag Launchpad into the left side of the Dock from the Applications folder.
Matt

I just got my Ipad2 and have my email accounts set up. When I go to the folder icon at the top of the page and click on Sent Items they disappear to somewhere. How do you look at your sent items?

I just got my Ipad2 and have my email accounts set up. I have sent messages but when I go to the folder icon at the top right of the page and tap on SENT emails it makes the inbox email on the screen disappear. How do you check your sent emails? Thanks for your help.

You can send over WiFi, but it sounds as if you need to setup your Gmail account, or did you do this already?

In Firefox4, can I lose the folder icons from the Bookmarks Bar while keeping icons everywhere else (because the folder icons are superfluous and extend the horizontal list of bookmark folders beyond the width of the window)?

I've just installed Firefox4 for Mac (OS 10.6.7) and can no longer see all my bookmark folders at once across the top -- because the folder icons make the Bookmarks Bar too wide. Yet, I like the icons on the other bars, so I don't want to turn them off globally. Is there a way to just lose the folder icons -- which don't appear to serve a purpose anyway?

Small correction to original post. Machine is an iMac 2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo. (I was at home when I made the first post.) But the bookmarks menu behavior still exists today and FF 5 is essentially unusable.
System details next to the post are not for machine with the bug in question.
Found a copy of FF4 to use until a solution is found. Turned off automatic updates to preserve this version.

Stacks and Folder Icons in the Dock

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