Downloads Icon with a ? mark!

[DougY]

I just woke my iMac up from sleep, and the Downloads Icon on the Dock has a big (?) question mark on it, and it will not open. Any ideas what happened, and how to fix it?

 

[tomacintosh]

Open Finder and browse to your 'Home' Folder

Is the actual Downloads folder still in there?

 

[DougY]

Still in Finder

Open Finder and browse to your 'Home' Folder

Is the actual Downloads folder still in there?

The Downloads folder is still in Finder, and all the downloads are in there. But my Downloads Icon on the Dock still has a big question mark on it and wont open.

 

[tomacintosh]

Easy enough to fix

Just drag the dodgy folder out of the dock and let go of it (in a puff of smoke) somewhere on the desktop

Then drag the original Downloads folder out of your Home folder and into the dock, it should make a new 'shortcut'

 

[DougY]

Success

Easy enough to fix

Just drag the dodgy folder out of the dock and let go of it (in a puff of smoke) somewhere on the desktop

Then drag the original Downloads folder out of your Home folder and into the dock, it should make a new 'shortcut'

That did the trick, tnx very much! Do you have any idea why that happened in the first place?

 

[tomacintosh]

Not really sure to be honest. Might have been a permissions problem, or it just lost the location of the original folder. Maybe it went to sleep and just forgot