After a download, a compass/safari icon remains on the screen

Yay - found a fix that worked!

Background:

In High Sierra, when you click to download a file, High Sierra creates an animation/visualization of the file (via a Safari icon) being download, in a very fast-moving "n" shape. Starting where you click, going to the top of the window and then back down to the "Download" folder in the Dock. If you DON'T have your "Download" folder in the dock, High Sierra cannot perform the animation and hence the Safari icon just gets "stuck" on the screen.

Fix:

In Finder, right click on "Downloads", then click "Add to Dock"

"Download" folder now added to the Dock

It's been driving me crazy since the release of High Sierra, hopefully, this "fix" works for you too.

Possible Fix!

Just got off the phone w Apple Advanced Support and their suggestion seems to have worked (fingers crossed!). I did update to the latest High Sierra iOS yesterday.

Here's what we did:

1. Open Safari preferences

2. General Tab

3. Change File download location to desktop

4. Issue persisted

5. Restart the Computer

6. Open Safari Preferences

7. Advanced Tab

8. Click on Show Develop menu in menu bar

9. Goto Develop tab and Empty Cache, [Option] + [Command] + [E] keys

10. It worked!

11. Uncheck Show Develop menu in menu bar. (I was told you can really mess up Safari with the Develop menu.)

I included Steps 1-5 as the Apple Support Engineer said they weren't sure if this in combination with Emptying the cache somehow fixed the problem. Hope this fix is permanent and it helps all of you.

Spent some time on the phone with Apple support tonight. Long story, short: They had me update to High Sierra 10.13.3 and the problem appears to be resolved. Hopefully, that does the trick permanently.

For those who don't know how to initiate this update:

• Open your finder
• Go to the Appstore
• There is a button on the top that says update-click that and install 10.13.3

*You can also see what version you are currently running by clicking on the apple icon in the top right corner of your screen and selecting "About This Mac"

Hope it works, and hope this can help someone else out.

I've had the exact same "stuck Safari logo" issues since upgrading to High Sierra. So I attempted the VRAM restart (holding down Option/Alt + Command + P + R) while booting my computer, but that didn't work. I attempted the killall Safari command in Terminal, but that only worked temporarily – once I shut down Safari and restarted it, the logo got stuck again.

The winner for me, unfortunately, was disabling Handoff. Please note to all of you that are trying this "fix" that you have to disable Handoff on ALL devices! Not just your MacBook! If you're handing off / sharing between your MacBook and your iPhone, make sure you're going into General Settings on your iPhone and disabling as well.

This is more of a vent post toward Apple, because this isn't right that we should have to disable this feature. I use it quite frequently and really enjoy it. Unfortunately for me, the logo issue took priority as I use Gmail for work and download hundreds of documents per day. My screen was literally filled with stuck logos a matter of 20 minutes.

What I also found odd was... In Gmail, I have my shortcuts enabled so that when I press Shift + C, a new email should appear but in a SEPARATE tear-away window from my Safari browser. Whenever I tried using this shortcut, I received the error message "Oops! You must have a pop-up blocker enabled", etc. etc. Which is not the case... My pop-up blockers were disabled in my Safari settings, and any place elsewhere that I could find.

Would love it if Apple would send an update to fix this, or for someone to share any other resolution other than turning off Handoff!

I broke the code, at least on my Mac Air (13 in, mid-2012) and iMac (21.5 in, mid-2011).

First, I added the Downloads folder to the Dock.

Next, in Safari settings I ensured the following was ticked off.

Now when I download, the grayed safari icon drops down into the downloads icon in the dock instead of the downloads icon on the safari toolbar.

That fixed it for me.

Same here. Has been happening since High Sierra as everyone else has said. I've also noticed this happens when the file I download is from my e-mail. I use gmail.

I did the suggested remedy turning off Handoff on my iPhone and iMac and this has fixed the problem--admittedly it's a workaround.

I called Apple Support and they had no additional fixes and said they would mention it to the engineers as a potential bug fix with the next update.

Try this from apple support..........NVRAM reset.

Shut down computer and hold the Option(Alt), Command, P and R keys. While holding those keys power on the computer and keep holding the keys until you hear the startup chime twice, then let go of the keys.

This seems to have worked for me on my 2015 MacBook Pro.

The Allow handoff option in General Prefs didn't work for me.

1. Does a restart resolve the issue temporarily?

2. Try another self standing version of Safari, Safari Technology Preview after restarting the Mac.

Download a safe application like EtreCheck. https://etrecheck.com

Does the problem reappear?

Safari Technology Preview.

This is another self standing beta version of Safari.

This version doesn’t have Debug option if you need to use.

To install Extensions:

Download extensions by entering the extension name in the search bar.

Download it.

Finder > Downloads

Right click on the filename.

Open with > Safari Technology Preview.

To uninstall STP:

Finder > Applications > Safari Technology Preview

Right click STP and choose “Move to Trash”.

https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/

Thank you for the suggestion, but the NVRAM reset did not work on my iMac. I had to turn off Handoff on both my iPhone and iMac for it work, not just the iMac.

I used the "killall Safari" command in terminal, and that fixed the problem for me. After that the problem stopped apearing.

After googling around, I found the answer for anyone still wondering: This icon indicates you have Apple's "Handoff" feature enabled — which opens the same browser window on your phone or other Mac device. This feature is enabled or disabled on Macs via System Prefs:

And apparently this is how you activate "Handoff" on an iOS device:

Various apps take advantage of this "handoff link" between Apple devices, so I think different icons display when you are using apps that sync to iCloud.

For details, here is the Apple Insider article I find which produced these graphics.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/04/18/how-to-enable-apples-handoff-feature-b etween-your-ios-devices-and-mac

For those who are still experiencing this issues, in Safari Settings > General, try to disable the option "New windows open with Tabs" by choosing any alternative. This function was causing the compass to become visible on any download for me.

Create another administrator account, logout, then login to your user account and test.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

It doesn't work.

This is a *BUG* affecting computers without Handoff but compatible with 10.13.x as this wasn't happening with 10.12

This is a brand new installation of the OS so cache removals, etc is irrelevant.

Definitely something to fix or stop using Safari.

I have been having the same problem since upgrading to High Sierra. I have also had problems with bizarre issues of font substitutions in some non-Apple applications. I have wondered if it has to do with the graphics card on my late-2013 iMac (NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1 GB).

A solution I have found is to use Firefox. I'm sure that is not what Apple had in mind.