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blue light under the Finder app on the dock

H

halfmonkey

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 17, 2011
139
3
Hi. I'm new to the Mac world so please forgive me for this "stupid" question.

It's my understanding that when there's a blue light under an app on the dock, that means that it's active. In any case, I just noticed that there's a blue light under the Finder app even when I don't have it open and when I click Command and Tab, it shows the Finder app. I've tried to force quit and instead of allowing me to force quit, it allows me to only click "relaunch." I've shut down and restarted and the same thing.

The thing is though is that I could have sworn that it wasn't like this when I first got the computer. I recalled that I was able to open the Finder app and then click the red bubble and close it out and I don't remember seeing the blue light under the Finder app on the dock.

I guess I'm hoping someone can check their computer and tell me the status of the blue light on their computer (maybe after a restart with nothing open.) Maybe I just never noticed it was always on and maybe I was wrong in thinking that it ever turned off when I closed the app but I could've sworn that it did turn off.

Can someone check and tell me one way or the other? Thanks.
 
It has always been like that, finder is not an app you can quit and still use your computer. It's what let's you launch any other apps, and also look through the filesystem unless my understanding of what finder does is wrong I think if you quit it you would just have a command prompt like terminal.
 
Finder is always open by design and so it always has a blue light. also if you close a window it doesn't mean the app will quit, apps with multiple windows wont quit when you close the last window.. quit from the Dock, menu bar or command-Q.
 
mrkramer said:
It has always been like that, finder is not an app you can quit and still use your computer. It's what let's you launch any other apps, and also look through the filesystem unless my understanding of what finder does is wrong I think if you quit it you would just have a command prompt like terminal.
Click to expand...

Sorry to ask such a newb question but are you saying then that the blue light is alway lit? On your computer, is the blue light on even after you've just shut the computer down and restarted it? Thanks for your help.
 
richard.mac said:
Finder is always open by design. also if you close a window it doesn't mean the app will quit, apps with multiple windows wont quit when you close the last window.. quit from the Dock, menu bar or command-Q.
Click to expand...

So the Finder app in the dock doesn't have the quit option. It just shows hide. Is this normal?
 
Thanks for all of the help guys. I guess I must have been seeing things because I could have sworn that it was not lit at some point but either way, I'll trust the experts on this question. Thanks again.
 
If you've used a windows computer, think of finder as "explorer". Explorer in windows is the file system that allows you to look at, well, folders and any kind of file on the hard drive. Finder is OS X's Explorer.

I found that if I force closed it (if I messed up and tried opening 400 pictures that aren't accessible anymore) then it just flicked off and back on, restoring everything to normal.
 
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