Icons of open applications don't show on Dock

[legogeek24]

About a week ago I noticed that my open application icons weren't showing up in the dock. The only icons that will are the ones permanently docked there. I don't recall any software installations or setting changes I made, but its very possible I unknowingly changed something. Does anyone have any ideas as to what may have caused this problem and how to fix it? Thanks

 

[filmweaver]

I believe you have to put them there, manually. Just go to your Application folder and click and drag to the dock the app you want to put on the dock.
You can also click and drag the applications folder and drag the entire folder to the dock, then all your applications will pop up in the folder when you click on it.

Good luck.

 

[legogeek24]

Thank you for the quick reply. There are several icons that I have dragged into the dock, and these show up just fine. However, when I opened a new, undocked application, its icon used to appear in the dock, and the icon would disappear when I closed the application. Now when I open an application, the icon never appears in the dock like it used to, and this is where my question comes. How do I cause the icons of these undocked applications to temporarily appear in the dock while it is running? Sorry if I worded it poorly in the initial post.

 

[GGJstudios]

About a week ago I noticed that my open application icons weren't showing up in the dock. The only icons that will are the ones permanently docked there. I don't recall any software installations or setting changes I made, but its very possible I unknowingly changed something. Does anyone have any ideas as to what may have caused this problem and how to fix it? Thanks

First, launch Terminal.app and enter this command, followed by pressing the Return/Enter key:

killall Dock​

If that doesn't correct the problem, delete the following file, then repeat the above command:

Macintosh HD/Users/~yourusername~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist​

I believe you have to put them there, manually.

No, that's only for icons that you want to remain in the Dock, even when they're not running. Any time you open an app, it's icon should automatically appear in the Dock.

 

[legogeek24]

That fixed the problem. Thank you!

 

[filmweaver]

No, that's only for icons that you want to remain in the Dock, even when they're not running. Any time you open an app, it's icon should automatically appear in the Dock.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't sure about it.

 

[big58ben]

Thank you

Don't know how this file gets corrupted but THANK YOU. The deleting of this file cures the immediate problem.

 

[Gregg2]

Don't know how this file gets corrupted...

Seems to me that Apple doesn't either. If they did, perhaps they could prevent it.