Deleted items in Downloads folder still show on Dock?

[Mazda 3s]

OK, the OCD in me is kicking in. I've had this issue ever since upgrading to Yosemite on my old 15" rMBP. When I delete a file from my Downloads folder (which I keep in my Dock next to the trash can), sometimes a blank icon for the file will still stay there:

When I click on the Downloads folder, it will show the file name:

Then when I click to open the Downloads folder, the file is missing (as it should be, because I've already deleted it):

The only way to clear it out for good is to reboot. As I said, this really is just my OCD kicking in, because when I delete something, I want it gone... not to stick around.

I recently bought a brand new 13" rMBP, which I am using now. It's a brand new install, nothing carried over from the old machine. And it just started exhibiting this same issue.

 

[MacCubed]

This happened to me and what I did to fix it is to open finder, navigate to your user folder and find "Downloads". In your dock click and hold the downloads folder and drag it to the desktop until like a puff thing appears next to the icon, let go and the folder should be gone from the dock. Now, take the downloads folder from finder and drag it the position that it was in before in the dock. Hope this helps!

 

[Mazda 3s]

This happened to me and what I did to fix it is to open finder, navigate to your user folder and find "Downloads". In your dock click and hold the downloads folder and drag it to the desktop until like a puff thing appears next to the icon, let go and the folder should be gone from the dock. Now, take the downloads folder from finder and drag it the position that it was in before in the dock. Hope this helps!

Nice trick. Still a weird bug though (along with many weird bugs in Yosemite).

 

[crashoverride77]

Nice trick. Still a weird bug though (along with many weird bugs in Yosemite).

This bug has been around since Mavericks unfortunatly.

 

[Amadeus71]

This happened to me and what I did to fix it is to open finder, navigate to your user folder and find "Downloads". In your dock click and hold the downloads folder and drag it to the desktop until like a puff thing appears next to the icon, let go and the folder should be gone from the dock. Now, take the downloads folder from finder and drag it the position that it was in before in the dock. Hope this helps!

This helped in Mojave 10.14.4 as well; curious how many years we'll continue having this bug ;-)

 

[that-ben]

This just happened under macOS 14.4.1 in 2024. Ridiculous.