Leopard: Changing Dock Stacks to Folders

February 26th, 2008 at 2:00 PM - Tips by Jeff Gamet

Not everyone is hip with the changes Apple made to the Dock in Mac OS X 10.5. Stacks, for example, became one of those love-it-or-hate-it features, and it sure seems like there are plenty of people that hate it. Now that Leopardis 10.5.2 update is out, however, you can choose to switch back to Dock folders if you like.

To change an icon from Stack view to the more familiar Folder view in the Dock, do this:

• Click and hold on a Stack itemis icon.
• Choose Display as Folder from the pop-up contextual menu.

Changing from Stacks to Folder view can be handy if you look for Dock items based on the icon and not location. Since Stacks show the top most or most recent item, the icon representing the Stack can change several times a day depending on how often you add new files to the folder it represents.

You can set Stack of Folder views on a folder-by-folder basis, which means you can mix and match Stacks and Folders depending on your needs. Thatis handy if you want to use Stacks as a visual cue to see when a new item has been added to a folder.

If you want to make your Dock folders act even more like they did in Tiger, check out my Quick Tip on changing from the Stack-style pop-up display to a hierarchical pop-up menu view.

[Thanks to TMO reader Hill Jason for pointing the Folder view feature out.]

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