MS Office Icons in Dock - flipping between old and new

Question

MS Office Icons in Dock - flipping between old and new

Hi All - the latest MS Office release has updated the dock icons for Excel, Word etc. The new versions show up accurately in my dock when they aren't open. But when I open the apps, the icons revert to the old ones (and then back to the new ones when I quit them).

I've tried restarting the dock via the Terminal, and I've also deleted the various preference files from the Library, but no joy. These old icons are in a cache somewhere, and I don't know how to force them to update.

Obviously, not a big deal - everything else still works fine - but it just seems odd that the icons revert when the apps are open...

Any bright ideas?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Nov 3, 2025 4:52 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Patrick Robinson Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2025 2:55 AM in response to Patrick Robinson

FIGURED IT OUT. The option to "show my pride" (!) was switched on in preferences. In previous versions of the apps, this has put a cute little rainbow border around the icon. The new version doesn't appear to support this - and was just showing the old icon without the rainbow. Once I unticked that option, the icons have started working properly.

I mean: the pride thing was hilariously performative as it was - but they didn't even bother to update it!

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 3, 2025 5:27 AM in response to Patrick Robinson

Not seeing this with the current versions of MS365 (subscription), do you mean that or the one-time purchase license version of Office?

Apps open

Apps closed

Sometimes booting in Safe Mode corrects various issues, try that then reboot normally.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

You might try your question on the Microsoft Forums:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/831/m365-office

Reply

Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

56,326 points

Nov 4, 2025 4:47 AM in response to Patrick Robinson

This is probably a side effect of Tahoe's new icons. Apple changed how icons are developed in Tahoe. In the process, they broke the icons for any older apps whose icons weren't the way that Apple would decide they should look six years later. And the irony of it all is that, except for the "icon jail", users can't see any difference at all. It's just a straight up punishment for developers not being able to foresee the future.

So the trick that Microsoft uses to update the icons when running may not be compatible with the new icon logic. Or perhaps Microsoft just forgot to update that logic. In any event, it's something that you should report to Microsoft. It might be fixable.

I use the Mac App Store versions of Microsoft apps just so I can avoid the constant updates from Microsoft. My version of these apps actually doesn't have the new icon logic. And everything still looks fine if I enable that pride option.

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 4, 2025 1:12 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks - it's the one time licence version. When the app's closed, I see the version of the icon you've posted. When it's open, it reverts to the old one...

I'll try a safe mode reboot and see what happens.

Reply