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

Agreed, I misspoke, it's not a "fix" it's indeed a workaround. This workaround is great for users who want to continue using Safari without the Safari icon remaining on the screen after a download.

The "Download" folder that is added to the Dock takes up a very little amount of real estate in my heavily used Dock on my MacBook Pro.

For me, I am willing to make this slight trade-off to continue using Safari unencumbered rather than switching to a different browser that are inherently slower, consume way too much memory, and shortens my available battery time. I am patiently waiting for Apple to fix this problem, but in the interim, for me, it's a small price to pay for all the benefits Safari has to a Mac user.

On my Mac, this problem had disappeared recently, although I have no notion what it was that I did that made the change. But then a few days ago, I installed the High Sierra update, and now the problem is back again. Clearly this is buried in the OS code, and Apple is now re-creating a host of angry users every time it does an OS update -- an apparent admission by Apple developers that they do not understand their own code.

Having to quit and re-open Safari every time we do a download is absurd. Time to find a different browser that doesn't have Safari's problems?

Same here. This is definitely a bug in High Sierra. Has anyone seen if Apple is aware and are looking into it?

This is clearly a bug, those icons should not appear AT ALL on machines that do not support handoff

I have this same issue and was wondering where this is coming from.

I'm using Safari Version 11.0 (13604.1.38.1.6) and I just updated to the release version of High Sierra about an hour ago.

I've noticed that anytime I download something the gray compass logo appears on screen and doesn't go away. The only way I clear it is to completely quit Safari.

Does anyone have any idea why this occurs or how to stop it?

I haven't noticed it occurring over the past few days. It happened for me anytime I downloaded something right after I upgraded to High Sierra on 26 Sep 2017. But it didn't happen on the 27th and it hasn't happened today (28th). So, I'm not sure if it was just a short lived graphical error or if it's an intermittent problem that may return at some point.

Anyone come up with a solution. Mine is still happening. I have gone back and delete extensions, plugins in the /Library and ~/Library folders. I have searched and searched for the root cause without success.

Having the same issue on High Sierra version 10.13.1 using Safari version 11.0.1 (13604.3.5)

Only goes away when we quit the browser. Sounds like a plist issue or an extension but I haven't gone down that route yet. Any answers on this?

Thanks,

I work in a school setting and some of the staff are having this issue. I disabled the handoff feature but the icon still pops up on the MacBooks after they download anything on safari. Is there any other setting or any step that may not be listed that needs to be done?

I've got this issue as well, but I have a mid2010 MacBook Pro. This means that I don't see the Handoff option under settings > general. Now what do I do? Honestly, I'm going to have to switch to Chrome or Firefox, this is annoying. Any ideas?

My iMac is a late 2009 model and so I don't have an "Allow handoff" feature in my System Preference > General settings. And yet I also have the persistent Safari compass icon after downloading each time. This also started after I upgraded to High Sierra. Would appreciate other solutions that worked in similar circumstance as mine.

come on Apple Support - this is STILL an issue for many of us. PLEASE troubleshoot and issue a fix. It is very, very annoying and only goes away after shutting down Safari. Very inconvenient and inefficient.

If "New windows open with Tabs" has to be permanently disabled, then this is not a very useful fix for those who prefer this function. Better to abandon Safari altogether and use another browser that doesn't have this compass/safari icon problem.

I have also found that the compass/safari icon problem seems to occur with downloads from some websites but not others -- which suggests it may be provoked by something in the code of those websites. Perhaps if the Apple developers explored that possibility, they might find a solution.

Lonac -

Fix:

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

It's not really a fix - might be a workaround if it works for some. I really do not want the Download folder in the dock, it's not necessary and it takes up space better used for other things! May as well carry on using Firefox or Chrome.

I wish this were even a work-around rather than a fix. Fact is, I have always had the Downloads folder in my Dock, and I still have the problem of the download icon remaining on the screen. I come back to a question I've asked before in this forum: Does the icon persist only with downloads from some websites, but not all websites? And if so, what is it that makes this happen only some of the time?