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I have been increasingly frustrated with the fact that you cannot expand a folder alias in the Finder "List View" via the "expand triangle" or in the dock. If I add a folder to the dock that contains folders and aliases to other folders, I can drill-down the "real" folders, but cannot on the aliases.

Does anyone know a way to make this work?

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    Remember, if you have an ADC account (they're free) you can file a bug report to ask for this feature. It (seems to) get more attention than the feedback form. Sep 2, 2009 at 19:49
  • Symlinks seem to be drill-downable in stacks, but only when viewed as Grid or List (not Fan). They can't be expanded in Finder's list view though. (Tested with 10.7 and 10.6.8.)
    – Lri
    Aug 5, 2011 at 13:13

3 Answers 3

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This is a known bug and is even mentioned in John Siracusa's review on Snow Leopard.

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In my case there is a normal folder "Current Projects" which is on the dock. In that folder are aliases to various project folders. Some of these folders expand in the dock's grid-view, some don't. I found out it depends on how you create the alias.

If I create an alias by dragging the folder to the "Current Projects" folder while pressing Command+Option the alias doesn't expand in the grid-view. I I create the alias by selecting "Make Alias" in the context menu and moving then this alias to the "Current Projects" folder. This alias does expand in the grid view of the dock. Weird.

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  • Very odd. In my case (snow leopard), I can't replicate what you are seeing. I have tried making aliases in all different ways, as well as symbolic links (ln -s). I guess we just wait for a bug fix.
    – Chris
    Sep 30, 2009 at 15:18
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A small update to this 10-year old question. This works for macOS 10.13, possibly earlier.

If I have a folder in the Dock, and create a an alias in that folder, then in the List view in the Dock, the alias is shown as an alias without a triangle. I can't browse it, like the OP indicated.

However, if I remove the folder from the Dock, and re-add it to the Dock, then the alias suddenly shows up as a folder with a triangle, and I can browse through it.

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  • Can confirm this is still the case, and a functional workaround, in macOS 13.0.1 Ventura!
    – Nebula
    Nov 15, 2022 at 1:25

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