Recently, I changed the icons of Documents, Music, Pictures, and Movies, then I dragged them to the side bar of Finder. Initially, everything is fine but over time the icons change to a white sheet of paper with the left corner dog-eared (blank document icon?). Usually, if I open a folder the intended icon will re-appear or if I restart it will re-appear, although the icon for Music seems to be more stubborn and won’t re-appear to the correct icon no matter what I do to “shake it up.”
Right now, I am using the new Star Trek icons, but this has happened with different icons such as the unibody icons (icons that pay homage to the MacBook Pros).
Is this a bug with the Finder’s Side Bar? Any solutions?
Thanks again, :)
— JC
Sounds like a bug in the Finder. It probably doesn't like you changing the icons for standard folders like that.
But interestingly, I also changed my device icons to one from the Star Trek Icons, and those don't disappear/re-appear!?!? So the bug seems to only affect folder icons.
Maybe it's not a bug . . . I set up the folders: Document, Music, Movies, Pictures by dragging them from the Home Folder to another hard drive (my data hard drive). Thinking those folders in my data hard drive have "attributes" linking them back to the Home Folder which is on another drive (System Drive) might be confusing the OS, I decided to create another set of folders but this time using "New Folder" so the folders wouldn't have anything linking them back to Home. I then cut and paste the contents from the former set of folders to the new, and the icons on the sidebar are now not disappearing! :)
My only worry now is when I cut and pasted I only highlighted the folders visible to me (iTunes, iPhoto Library, etc.), would the OS put hidden files in Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures that I need
You can't really "move" those folders -- they are special folders. To avoid confusion, I would only have one folder named "Documents" etc, and in the proper place. You can create other folders elsewhere, like "Archived Documents" or "More Music" but I wouldn't do it the way you have set it up.
I think I'll rename them all with "Data" in front, thus Data Documents, Data Music, etc, and I like to use these "data" folders as my main repository of files. So then I moved all the files inside Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures (from Home) e.g. iTunes, iPhoto Library, by cutting and pasting into the "data" folders.
Would the OS put hidden files in those special folders Documents, Music, Movies, Pictures residing in Home?? Coming from the world of Windows there often are hidden files one would miss by simply cutting and pasting that would screw up the grand plan.
There shouldn't be any hidden files, but you need to tell iPhoto and iTunes where the libraries are located in order for them to work right.
Well seems like the above is a mis-diagnosis because the sidebar icons have gone back to the icon of a white sheet of paper dogged ear on the right upper corner. I guess it's a bug. :( I given up and have cut and pasted a regular plain blue folder icon, so hopefully the OS will like that and keep them as a blue folder icon and not switch back and forth with the white sheet of paper icon.
Any ideas why the switching back and forth?
No idea. You shouldn't have to copy and paste a folder icon, though. If you just select the icon in the Info window and hit Delete it will delete the custom icon and return to the default. That's what you should do to get back to those special default icons.