Make a Tiger Dock Downloads Folder like in Leopard

One of the new features in Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" that Steve Jobs demonstrated during his WWDC 2007 keynote address is the Downloads Folder in Leopard's Dock. This is cool and makes for a cleaner Desktop. However, one can do the very same thing in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or probably any version of Mac OS X.

Here are the steps that we followed:

1. Create a new folder in the ~/Documents folder and name it "Downloads."
2. Add a custom icon (we chose a downward-pointing arrow) by control clicking on an image or folder and choosing Get Info. Then click the image in the top left corner and copy it (control-C). Then control-click the Downloads folder and choose Get Info. Click the image in the top left corner and copy the image (control-V). Step 2 can be skipped as it's only a nicety.
3. Drag the new Downloads folder to the Dock below the application demarcation line and drop it. It should stick in the Dock.
4. Open the preferences for Safari (or any Web browser) and set the downloads location to be the new Downloads folder created in the Documents folder.

Now all of your downloads will end up in the Downloads folder. Control-clicking the folder's icon in the Dock will produce a list of the downloads in the order that they were completed. It's not quite as nice visually as Leopard's will be but it accomplishes mostly the same thing. [Bill Fox]