Q: What is the small arrow pointing to my Safari icon on my dock and why is it there or what did I do to make it appear?
-
Apr 4, 2014 11:32 PMby seventy one,Hello Peg14,
I think you are referring to the marker that tells you the app is an alias. You must at some time have dragged an Alias copy into the dock. You cannot delete the arrow.
Try going to Applications and dragging the Safari icon you find there, into the dock. Once it settles and shows without the arrow, drag the icon that offends, out of the dock and let go in the desk top area ... Poof, and gone. Doesn't matter that you will, for a few moments, have two safari icons in the dock.
-
by rkaufmann87,Oct 20, 2015 3:41 PM
rkaufmann87
Oct 20, 2015 3:41 PM
in response to shaunafromsaratoga
Level 9
(58,704 points)
Photos for Macshaunafromsaratoga wrote:
What if I have an alias for my MacHD? Can I just delete the alias icon without losing anything?
Yes, just select it and drag it up and it will disappear. Please look over the section on removing items from the Dock in Mac Basics: The Dock holds your favorite apps, documents, and more - Apple Support
-
Oct 20, 2015 9:13 PMby babowa,You do not want to move your Macintosh HD icon to the trash - that icon represents your entire OS and contains all your files, folders, and everything else that makes your computer run.
FWIW, the little arrow under an icon in the dock is the indicator that the app is active - you may have closed the window, but you did not quit it, so it is still running, albeit in the background. If you quit the app, the arrow will disappear.
-
by rkaufmann87,Oct 20, 2015 9:33 PM
rkaufmann87
Oct 20, 2015 9:33 PM
in response to shaunafromsaratoga
Level 9
(58,704 points)
Photos for Mac
shaunafromsaratoga wrote:
What if it's on my desktop...does that make a difference? Can I just put it in the trash then?
You don't want to move it to the Trash. However if you want to hide it on the Desktop here is what you do:
Finder - Settings - General tab - select what you do and don't want shown on the desktop.
-
Oct 21, 2015 11:56 AMby shaunafromsaratoga,Thanks for the info.
But what if I have 2 Macintosh HD icons on my desktop and one is without arrow and one is with the arrow. The other day, I must have pushed a key unintentionally and the 2nd icon popped up on my desktop but with an arrow attached to the lower left-hand corner. I'm wondering if it copied all my files again and it's eating up space because after that, I kept getting the message: "your Start-up disk is almost full." I have a Mac OS X 10.6.8 if that matters.
-
Oct 21, 2015 1:32 PMby babowa,If it's on the desktop (not the dock) and this is the arrow (in the lower left corner) you are seeing, then yes, it is probably an alias:
And yes, that could contain a complete copy - compare the two by (one after the other) highlighting the icon, press Command + i keys and keep the get info window open. Do the same with the other one. Do the numbers look about the same? Space available, used, etc? If so.....
open your hard drive (double click the icon) and make sure all your files are there - all the apps, your files (Documents folder probably), movies, music, etc. If it's all there, you should be able to trash the alias. But only do so after you've made sure that everything is in the regular hard drive.
