Creating Handy Dock Folders With Apps Or Files

You can create folders just to use in the Dock that contain aliases to apps or commonly-used files.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to create handy, custom Dock folders for your Mac. 
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Now in the past I've shown you how to create these handy folders that appear on the right side of your Dock but usually it's in the context of other Dock Tips. I thought I would do a video just focusing on this one thing. 
So the Dock at the bottom of your screen has apps to the left and to the right, beyond the divider line, is a set of folders, like sometimes your Downloads folder, and the Trashcan. But you could also put other files and folders here. So the only place files and folders can go is to the right of this line. You may also have a middle section here with your most recent Dock items. But I'm talking about the section all the way to the right. So what you can do is you can put a folder in here and access it just like this Downloads folder here. There is nothing in it right now but I could easily go into the Finder, select another folder like this one, drag it to the right side of the Dock and now I can access the items in there from the Dock. 
But you can create a custom folder that has exactly the items that you want in there and use that instead of a folder that is already part of your organizational structure. To demonstrate this I'm going to create a folder to hold these folders. So I'm going to do that in the Documents Folder because I like putting everything in the Documents Folder. But I'm going to name it something so I know what it is. So I'm going to create a new folder in the Documents Folder and I'm going to call this Dock Folders. Inside of Dock Folders I'm going to create another folder here called, I'll call this Graphic's Apps.  Let's say I have a crowded Dock with apps on the left and I want to have a spot that just has all my Graphic Apps. I don't use graphic apps super often but when I do it will be nice to see them all in a group there in the Dock. So in this Graphics App Folder what I want to do is gather together all of the apps I want to use.
I want to create another Finder window and in that Finder window I'm going to go to my Applications Folder so I can see all my applications. I want to start off by dragging an app in there. I don't want to actually drag the app itself. I want to drag an alias to the app. An alias is a link that you can double click to launch an app or open a file but it doesn't actually move the original file. Now I can do that by selecting the file I want to move, in this case an app, hold the Command and Option key down and when I drag you could see the arrow that's part of my cursor changes to a little curve there. I can drop that in. Now you could see I've got an alias to Pixelmator Pro. The app is still in the Applications Folder but I've got this little alias here. It's a tiny little file that just points to it and you can see the icon for it actually has this little curved arrow there telling you it is an alias. 
Now for apps you don't need to actually hold down Command  and Option because if it is coming out of the Applications Folder then the operating system assumes that you want to create an alias and not actually move the application. So, if I try to do it again let's, for instance, go and take Affinity Designer here. If I drag it over you can see it automatically changes to the little curved arrow. I didn't have to hold down the different modifier keys. But keep that in mind because we will be using that again in a minute. So let's take a bunch of graphic's apps. Let's put those, I'll take PhotoShop which is actually in a subfolder here. I'll be careful to take the actual app. Not a folder for it. Here's another graphic's app and then we can grab other ones. Let's say maybe it would be handy to have Preview in there as well. Maybe also Photos. So I have a bunch of different graphic's apps that are now in here. 
Now I can take this folder and I can drag it to the right side of the Dock. It won't actually go anywhere on the left side of the Dock. It goes on the right side of the Dock. You can see I've got Graphic Apps there. If I click it I get this cool little fan here with all of the icons and I can actually click on one of these to launch an app. So now I've got 7 apps here taking up only one slot in the Dock. But they are almost as easy to access. Now I have some options. If I Control Click, two-finger click on a trackpad, or right click on a mouse, you can see I can change the Sorting for this. By Name makes sense here. I can have it display as a Folder instead of a Stack. So now it's a little folder icon there. I can have the contents come up always as a Fan, which is this view here. I can have the contents always come up as a Grid, which is this view here. I can have it always come up as a List, which I like because it is compact and simple and I can see exactly what I'm going to do here. So I'll leave it at that. 
So the other thing I could do is I can customize the icon here. I don't do that by doing anything in the Dock. I go back to the Finder and I've got this folder here. You can get any graphic you want. I'm going to go into Freeform here and I'm just going to use one of these shapes here. I can search for paint and there's different things here I can use. Let me use the paint splatter. That's kind of cool. I'll change the color to make it something like an orange. I'll select it and copy. Then I'll go back to the folder there. Do Command i to get info. Go to the icon here and do Command V to paste. It will replace the icon with that. So now when I look here I can see I've got that icon instead of a folder icon. It still thinks it is showing a folder icon. It is just that my folder icon is now a custom one that is this paint splatter. You can look online and find all sorts of great different icons to use or even grab one of the icon from one of the apps. Copy it from the Info window and paste it as the folder icon to use that. 
So now I've got a handy little single icon in the Dock that gives me access to all these different apps. I could even go back here into the graphic's app folder and I could add more. I can remove. I can rename these so the alias will still point to the right application but I will just have a different name that I will see. I can even create subfolders. I'll create a new folder here. I'll call it Affinity and I will drop the two apps from that one company into there and now look at what happens. When I click here you can see I've got a subfolder. So if you've got a lot of apps that are graphic's apps you can divide them up into categories or by company or anyway you want to do it and still have pretty quick access to them.
Now we can do this with more than just apps. So I want to create a new folder here in my Dock Folder's Folder because I've just got this place to store them. I'll call this, you know, Business Files. In Business Files I will go and put files that fit that category that maybe I need access to a lot. So here's one here and what I'm going to do is make sure I hold down Command and Option to put an alias to it. That way I'm not actually moving it from the place where I've carefully placed it so I know where it is. I will go and put aliases to a bunch of different files from a bunch of different folders in here. I can keep going and I can create subfolders in here as well. But I'm going to take this Business File folder, right now, and I'm going to stick it on the right side of the Dock as well. Now I've got Business Files there. I'll Control Click it. Set it up so it's always a List. I'll Control Click it so it is always displayed as a Folder. I can do the custom icon there. Now I've got Business Files and I can easily select one of these and it will open up this file. I have quick access to the files that I need the most often. 
But I can have subfolders here if I need more or I can simply add more folders here if I need it. In this case it may actually be handy to sort by something other than Name. So, for instance, Date Modified might be useful because now I'm going to see the most recently modified one at the top. Then as with the other folder here I can go back in and I can remove and add files. I can change the names of files if I want. So I can call this one just X here and you can see how it appears as X. But if I select it, it will actually open up the original file which has the original name. So, for instance, in a case like this if I have a file I'm updating all the time I can actually change the alias name to something like that and then it will always  look like that even though next year I may actually create a new alias with the same name that points to a new file for that year.
So I hope this gives you lots of different ideas of ways you can setup these custom folders and use them on the right side of the Dock for quick access to your favorite applications and files. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Creating Handy Dock Folders With Apps Or Files”

zTom

1 year ago

I have added a folder to the dock. I even added a special icon to the folder. My problem is the folder seems to take on the icon of the first app listed. It appears on top of the icon I added. Thanks in advance

Gary Rosenzweig

zTom" Control+click it, select Display As: Folder.

jel888

Thanks Gary! You upped my handy dock folder capabilities. When you gave zTom the solution, does that mean that it was displaying as something else? And if so, what? An app versus the folder?

Never mind, I reviewed the video and realized it was showing as a stack versus a folder.

I created a folder for photo apps just as you instructed, it was in my documents folder. Placed on the dock, each app's icon showed correctly showed correctly except for in folder/list view, where the icons were just white with the shortcut symbol and the name. The only way I can get the list view to display correctly was to add the "dock folders" folder to the applications folder. Any ideas why this is happening? Is it ok to to have the dock folder in the applications folder?

CT: Not sure why the icons aren't being displayed correctly. I wouldn't put the folder in the Applications folder, as it doesn't belong there. Not sure if that will cause problems. I would have tried a simple restart instead.

Randall

9 months ago

On my MacBook Pro (Intel Sonoma), everything works except the apps don't launch when I select their alias from the dock folder I have created and installed into the dock.

Randall: Investigate. If you open the folder in the Finder and double-click on the aliases there, does that launch them?

Comments Closed.

Creating Handy Dock Folders With Apps Or Files

Comments: 8 Responses to “Creating Handy Dock Folders With Apps Or Files”

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