Big Sur Dock Icons

Boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists.  Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

Hey there! Strange one!

Considering the symptoms, I’m first wondering what you see in System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login items.

Curious to see if Firefox or if there’s a common startup item in there with everyone, I’d highlight each and hit the “-“ sign, restart and test.

Myself, if that didn’t work, I’d probably open Terminal:

Finder > Go (On the top menu) > Utilities > Terminal.

In Terminal, type:

sudo killall dock

Press Return, enter admin password if prompted and hit Return again, any change?

If not, (And this is just a suspicion if those steps didn’t work out):

Select the Apple logo (On the top left) > Force Quit > Finder > Relaunch.

Any change?

With my Apple Care still valid, I rang them this am. They had not heard of this issue. They ran through changes on 'dock and menu bar', as have been discussed in this and the other thread. We then tried 'safe' mode restart...which worked ok - though I did mention that usually all is OK for a first day or so, and that after that the problem returned. Throughout I did agree they could 'see' my screen, so they could have a visual of the issue and the lack of success of the attempted fixes above. Finally, they advised software reinstall and to get back to them if the problem reappeared after that. So, I have done this and will keep this thread informed.

Thanks again!

Hey again! Sounds good. So you did run the killall dock in Terminal? Man should just be a reference page.

Let me know how those other steps go I mentioned earlier, I can’t replicate the issue but those steps would be the first ones I’d take given the situation.

Likewise, there is a rather new setting in Dock & Menu Bar Preferences to, “Show recently opened apps in Dock”, just wondering if that’s enabled in all these cases, and if disabled, if that makes a difference.

I can see in your screen shot, it appears to happen to the “Recently open” apps, however in another posted one seems otherwise.

I’d try those previous steps I mentioned, curious to see the results, but if it’s working now that’s awesome! (Hope it lasts, these things can be strange though at times).

I have this problem as well.

I can fix an instance of it by going to System Preferences and selecting "Dock&Menu Bar".

Then selecting a different screen position for the dock, and then putting it back to Bottom.

With MACBook Air, pruchased Nov 2020, I only recently came to have this issue with 11.1. When 11.2 was installed it went away for a few days and then came back. 11.2.1 also seemed to fix for a few days. Only way I have found to fix it is complete restart. Not only does the app icon go blank (except, yes, for a mini icon) but documents in word, Adobe, also cannot be seen....only their mini-icons.

When it seemed to go away with 11.2.1 I thought maybe they have notice and fixed it.

By the way, there is another similar discussion thread at:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252102792

I also have this issue - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015). I have successfully re-installed Big Sur and that fixed the problem for a short time - but now it's the same issue again (although a bit worse actually since almost all icons have vanished).

I do get it very often on the minimised icons BUT as you can see many of the app icons have also vanished

Unfortunately at this moment I have it "fixed" after toggling the Dock position.

I will have to wait until the problem reappears. I have seen it mainly as cosmetic; but it does happen a lot. I thought perhaps Apple software folks wanted it this way.

The pattern that I am noticing is that the "created" Dock icon has a preview of what was showing in the app when it was minimized. It is this preview which is not showing. Only the microscopic icon of the app that typically overs over the bottom corner of the little preview is then showing.

I also noticed today: I used Terminal to launch Man (help) for the ls command and this did then not have an icon (I guess Man is a service rather than an app) and there the preview was also not showing. So with no app icon, the Dock icon spot was completely empty.

Personally, I booted into recovery mode and erased the entire drive. Then I reinstalled from the internal recovery drive (not from an external source). I did not restore any data/settings from backup. I did this on 2 different Macs and both still have this problem.

I am having the same problem on both laptops, MacBook Air (March 2020) and on MacBook Air M1(Feb 2021), using Big Sur 11.2.3.

Nothing mentioned in this thread seems to be fixing/working/helping. Almost as though the problem seems to be getting worse with each update.

Also notice that there is a one second lag between when I hit the minimize button and when it actually minimizes the window. This one second lag also occurs when trying to move icons around on my desktop, even if I am not running any other programs or have anything else open or minimized.

@apple - Fix this please before it gets out of hand!

Wow, finally I realize I'm not alone with this problem. It has been going on for months, ever since I installed Big Sur (non beta.) The only icon that shrinks for me is the finder though. Functionally, it makes it harder to see what finder folders I have minimized, but if you mouse hover, you can still see the folder name. But visually, it is just jarring.

I wasn't able to find any preference that changed this. If I open the folder and minimize it again, it goes back to normal size. So I find myself doing that a fair amount.

These usually start to minimize if left in the dock untouched for a day.

Same problem here. I noticed only my M1 Mac mini with Big Sur has this. This is also not a beta issue since I am using OS11.2.3 and had this issue since day 1 with no third party software installed.

My suspicion for the cause is on the bootable drive. I am logged in using a user account on my external SSD. I have noticed more than a few weird things going on using it.