Important: if you're running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or 10.11 (El Capitan), you're lucky; Quay will still work (mostly), though largely by coincidence - and is therefore unsupported. It may stop working at any upgrade. Quay is still a 32-bit application, since it uses some now-obsolete Carbon APIs, and OS X will be 64-bit-only soon.
OS X 10.9 and later: the format of Finder's saved searches has changed, so putting one in the Dock is now unsupported.
OS X 10.11: Apple now disallows 3rd-party apps from getting information about other processes, so the popup for running applications will show only the app version.

If you're upgrading to Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) or later, you must update Quay to version 1.1.5 first!
If you've upgraded without uninstalling, you'll see a repeated error popup. To stop this, first paste this line into the Terminal:
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/net.brockerhoff.QuayMenu.plist
and then trash the file "/Library/Application Support/Quay.quay".

If you're upgrading to Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), you must update Quay to version 1.1.4 first!
If necessary, download the disk image again and click "uninstall" from the installer.
(Do the same if you still have version 1.1.2 or earlier, and are upgrading to Mac OS X 10.7 [Lion]).

Download Quay version 1.1.5:     

Quay extends the Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or 10.9 (Mavericks) Dock to show extended popup menus for most Dock items, including applications, stacks and URLs. Quay also allows you to make folder proxy icons with easily customized icons.

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) introduced "Stacks" in the Dock, with a unique grid display. Starting with 10.5.2, Stacks once again can show hierarchical menus for their contents.

So why should you use Quay at all? Extra information, more flexibility. For one, the Dock's popups are limited to about 500 items; Quay's limit is in the tens of thousands. You can have a Quay popup on both sides of the Dock; Apple has them only on the document side. The Dock doesn't follow aliases/symbolic links in its menus; Quay does. It works for Smart Folders, also shows application versions and (for running applications) CPU and memory statistics. Still, if for some reason you want the Dock's normal display, just hold the Option key down before clicking.

Finally, I'm more likely than Apple to, on short notice, implement features you request.

Quay does no magic (but it does use complex technology superficially indistinguishable from that). It doesn't hack the Dock or the system. It uses no undocumented APIs, although it does depend closely on the Dock's implementation details.

Let's compare Quay with the Dock's default menu:

Quay, Sort by Name
Quay
10.5.2, Sort by Name
10.5.2

As you see, Quay shows a header with more information, but that's not all. Now compare the same folder with different options:

Quay, Sort by Date Modified, Show Labels
Quay
10.5.2, Sort by Date Modified
10.5.2

But Quay has even more information to show:

Quay, Sort by Kind, Show Labels+Folder Counts+File Sizes
Quay
10.5.2, Sort by Kind
10.5.2

And for any running application, you can now see:

Quay, option-command-click on Safari in the Dock
(even geekier information will be shown when you then hold down Control)
Quay
10.5.2
10.5.2

Finally, you can drag a Smart Folder (or canned search) to the Dock, and get a normal menu for it:

Quay, part of pop-up for "Created Today"
Quay
10.5.2
10.5.2

Quay is for Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), 10.7.x (Lion), 10.8.x (Mountain Lion) or 10.9.x (Mavericks), for Intel only.

If you're still on 10.5 (Leopard) or a PowerPC Mac, use the older Quay 1.1.2: but please note this isn't Lion- (or later) compatible.

This is shareware; the price is €7 (about US$9 - it will oscillate somewhat with currency rates). There is no trial period, but only the first Quay item on each side of the Dock will work until you register. Application popups are a free bonus!


Code Signing: Quay is codesigned for extra security. Basically, this means that you can verify if the application's executable has been signed by a specific developer, and that you can have some assurance that code or resources have not been tampered with by third parties.
To check that Quay's signature is intact, use my free RB App Checker Lite utility. If you prefer to use Terminal, paste in the following command, and press the Return key:

codesign -dvv -r- /Library/Application\ Support/Quay.quay/Quay.app

You should see several result lines in the Terminal. For version 1.1.4, you should see Authority=Developer ID Application: Rainer Brockerhoff as well as Authority=Apple Root CA.

For older versions, Authority=Rainer Brockerhoff should be present, identifying the author. The last line should end with ...root = H"4cbb97c74336f7ee6aa566122a5e7688e1c725dc", uniquely identifying the author's signature. Now run the following command:

codesign -vv /Library/Application\ Support/Quay.quay/Quay.app

If the application is intact, this should display valid on disk; otherwise you'll see code or signature modified. In the latter case, the application will not run when double-clicked.


Release Notes: Version 1.1.5

  • Quay is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks).

Release Notes: Version 1.1.4

  • Quay is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).
  • Quay is now signed with Developer ID for 10.8's Gatekeeper compliance.
  • Older versions sometimes displayed a spurious error message, complaining "...QuayMenu cannot open files...". This should be fixed now.

Release Notes: Version 1.1.3

  • Quay is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). Support for 10.5 (Leopard) and PowerPC Macs has been dropped.

Release Notes: Version 1.1.2

  • Quay is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
  • Quay now works correctly with the Finder's canned searches, if you drag them directly from the Finder to the Dock.
  • Stacking screens vertically now works if menu bar and Dock are on different screens.
  • Now recovers properly from a rare (in Leopard, at least) timeout error.

Release Notes: Version 1.1.1

  • The Quay menus now activate correctly after a restart (they failed to do so on some systems).
  • Quay now works correctly if you have a Dashboard widget on your desktop.

Release Notes: Version 1.1

  • Dragging out a plain folder from the Quay window now keeps the folder icon.
  • The Dock's selected icon name display is now suppressed correctly in all cases. I think.
  • The background application no longer loads Contextual Menu Plugins (which it never used, anyway).
  • Works around a Leopard bug which would mess up the menu location after unplugging the monitor the menu bar was on.
  • The icon for plain folders dragged out of the Quay window is again a folder icon.
  • Fixed small errors in the French localization.

Release Notes: Version 1.1fc1

  • Now also handles Smart Folders.
  • French localization added.
  • Aliases dragged to the Dock now work correctly.
  • If an alias file has a custom icon or a label, those will be displayed instead of the pointed-at file's icon or label.
  • Should the installer fail (hypothetically, of course), it will now show a text error message in addition to the error number.
  • Quay menus will no longer pop up while Dashboard or Exposé are active.
  • The popup menu for running applications should now work correctly for all applications.
  • The popup menu for running applications also shows if the application is in 64-bit mode, running under Rosetta or a debugger. This was already in 1.1b3 but not documented.
  • Under some conditions, Quay could fail to pass mouse-up events to other applications, which could cause strange behavior with text selection (Xcode was one example).
  • You can now click again to cancel while a large menu being built.
  • Closing a menu by clicking again is now more reliable.
  • Aliases/simlinks that form a loop no longer will hang the background application.
  • "List Only" stacks now works correctly when preceded by a URL or "Recent" icon.
  • Quay will now try to remount unmounted server volumes if you click on an icon that is on such a volume.
  • Quay could freeze the Dock for several seconds if a server volume had just dropped off the network.
  • The URL displayed when option-command-clicking on URL Dock items is now correct.
  • Long popup menus will no longer cover the menu bar or the Dock, even when "Hiding" is set.

Release Notes: Version 1.1b3

  • Option-command-clicking on a running application in the Dock will show a popup with application statistics.
  • Shift-command-click on a Stack or Quay item will open the contents in the Finder.
  • The main Quay application now has an "Enable Quay menus" checkbox, and its Dock icon now has a badge to show if the background application is running.
  • Quay is now installed into /Library/Application Support, meaning it's available to all users of your Mac. Registration is still per-user, although you're free to use the same serial for all users.
  • Quay now works correctly with FileVault.
  • The main menu item count is now accurate; subfolder item counts are still estimates, however, and the menu header now shows a '~' to indicate that.
  • The Installer now presents an error if the background application can't be started.
  • The Installer now runs the installed Quay application after finishing, and unmounts the Quay disk image.
  • You can now uninstall Quay directly from the main application.
  • The last menu item in the folder popup now correctly reads "Open in Finder".
  • You can also set general Stack preferences in the main Quay application.
  • More and better messages in the console log.
  • Colors used in custom icons (middle layer) are now closer to the actual system colors.
  • You can now print out the Help window.
  • The Utilities folder has been added to the "Popular" menu.
  • Option-command-space now works correctly with keyboard navigation.
  • Fixed a bug that caused command-tab to continuously cycle over icons in certain conditions.
  • Fixed a bug that mispositioned the Dock stripe popup menu under certain conditions.

Release Notes: Version 1.1b2

  • Supports Mac OS X 10.5.2 properly (previous versions didn't).
  • Now recovers properly when the Dock is restarted.
  • The Installer window now has a Quit button always visible.
  • The Installer searches and trashes 1.0.x Quay applications, and puts a symbolic link to the new application in their place.
  • The Installer puts a symbolic link to the Quay application inside ~/Applications (if present; otherwise, inside /Applications).
  • Now shows an error popup if you click on a server that has been unmounted, instead of freezing.
  • Now shows the opt-cmd-click popup even if you have Dashboard in the Dock.
  • opt-cmd-clicking on a URL item in the Dock will show a popup with a clickable URL.
  • All Quay popups now have a "Open Quay..." item at the top.
  • Better permission checking on the installed application, and better error messages if that fails.
  • Shows a better error message if no administrator authentication is canceled.
  • Renamed an internal resource file to avoid misleading DiskWarrior error reports.
  • If a Stack was on an unmounted disk image or server, the error popup now shows where it was.

Release Notes: Version 1.1b1

  • Quay now works transparently on your Stack folders in the Dock, and uses the exact same clicks used for the Dock.
  • Quay overlays a white gradient arrow over the clicked icon so you can easily see which menus are Quay's and which are the Dock's.
  • New sort options; including by Label, by Application, and Unsorted; the alphabetical sort now shows the exact order used by the Finder.
  • Can now show 64x64-pixel icons with QuickLook previews.
  • 10-fold speed improvement over the previous version, especially for large folders.
  • Alias indicators in the menus are gone, but you can now show Labels, dates, folder counts or file sizes.
  • The menu width is now limited to a reasonable value and too-long filenames are truncated in the middle.
  • If you select larger icons, longer filenames are shown in multiple lines.
  • Keyboard navigation is now fully supported.
  • Improved error message if you try to run it on a pre-Leopard system.
  • "Popular" folder names are now localized.
  • More "Popular" icons.
  • You can now place Quay icons on both sides of the Dock.
  • You can now see your full serial number after registering.
  • The serial number text field now accepts copy&paste; it still won't accept drag&drop, and the help text has been amended for that.
  • Fixed a bug where closing the registration window prematurely would "hang" the application.
  • General menu appearance and alignment has been improved.
  • You can copy and paste custom icons from the main Quay window.
  • New installer runs from distribution disk image; it also uninstalls.

Release Notes: Version 1.0.1

  • You can now do custom badges and base icons, and if you select a readable image file, the file itself will be read. (Hold down Option while clicking on "Open" in the dialog, to always use the file's icon.)
  • Added "Show Contents of..." item to the bottom of the popup menus.
  • Suppresses the alias indicator if you select icons->none.
  • Menu positioning is now correct, even with long filenames.
  • Now "shows contents" correctly, even if your Finder is not in Column View mode.
  • Now brings applications to the front when starting.
  • Fixed badge alignments and menu checkmarks which were off in some cases.
  • "/" in folder names now works correctly.
  • Double-click timing is a little better but not good enough; this is proving surprisingly hard to implement correctly. If it doesn't work for you, use Option-Command-click until I solve it.

Release Notes: Version 1.0 (fixed since 1.0b6)

  • Registration.
  • Folders can be opened from the standard Open Dialog.
  • There's an "Open Popular" menu for popular folders.
  • Can select any file or folder's icon as base.
  • Returns former top window to the top after the menu is closed.
  • Separate Help window.
  • All visible text has been reviewed.
  • More automatically badged folder types.
  • Double-click interval fixed, menu pops up faster.
  • The overlay window (over the Dock) is now really invisible.
  • Now runs correctly from case-sensitive partitions.
  • A bug that corrupted icon data has been fixed.
  • A bug that mis-sized some folder icons has been fixed.