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# Undiscoverable, Essential UI
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/undiscoverable-essential-ui/
- Published: 2020-10-05T22:10:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-10-08T12:39:00.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler
- Tags: #Import 2023-06-01 22:41, #Import 2025-03-29 19:29

[I wrote this](https://birchtree.me/blog/undiscoverable-ui-madness/) back in Febraury:

> Without even leaving the Finder and Desktop I was able to find a bunch of things that long-time Mac users had never known about because they never discovered them in their daily use.

Fast forward 8 miserable months later and Mac users are freaking out over "proxy icons" hiding themselves until you hover over them. For those hearing "proxy icon" for the first time, fear not, I was in your shoes as well. This is a proxy icon (the icon next to my home folder title):

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2020/10/image-1.png)

The best way I can describe it is to say it's exactly like the icon for a folder, app, or file in the Finder window, but it's in the window menubar. Here's an example of using it to move the folder you're looking at into a different location in the Finder:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2020/10/ScreenFlow.gif)

And here it is being used to open a file you already have open in one app into another app:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2020/10/drop-into-another-app.gif)

As I said, I've been a Mac user Since 1995 and I never knew this was a thing you could do. Now that I know it's a thing, I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but maybe I'll figure something out.

> The Big Sur auto-hidden document-proxy icon is so frustrating — it hides functionality behind an invisible mode, and introduces a delay for anyone trying to use it.  
>  
> How does this help usability?  
>  
> What problem does this solve?  
>  
> Is anyone empowered at Apple to ask these questions? [pic.twitter.com/JXYXhppHfD](https://t.co/JXYXhppHfD?ref=birchtree.me)
> 
> — Marco Arment (@marcoarment) [October 3, 2020](https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1312486990403706880?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=birchtree.me)

If you knew about this and used it, then clearly Big Sur is a regression in this regard and you should be upset. That said, this is not a super discoverable feature and [I would bet](https://twitter.com/mattbirchler/status/1313233586481491968?ref=birchtree.me) that the vast majority of Mac users have never used this before. I'm not saying that is a good reason to make it worse, more of a reminder that when it comes to user interfaces, everything you know is discoverable, and everything you don't know is undiscoverable. 🙃