• I have tried with the latest version of Docker Desktop
• I have tried disabling enabled experimental features
• I have uploaded Diagnostics
• Diagnostics ID:

Expected behavior

I would expect to find the docker Whale icon in the Mac's "menu bar" to always be visible when the docker-desktop VM is running.

Actual behavior

User can perform actions to accidentally remove the whale icon from menu bar, even though docker is still running in the background, and there is no clear logical way to bring the icon back to the menu bar. See the detailed scenario described below.

Information

• macOS Version: Monterey (v12.5)
• Intel chip or Apple chip: intel
• Docker Desktop Version: reproducible on 4.10.1 (82475) and 4.11.0 (83626)

Output of /Applications/Docker.app/Contents/MacOS/com.docker.diagnose check

n/a

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Open docker preferences by using the Whale icon in the menu-bar.
2. In Mac's "Dock", right click on the Docker icon and select Quit
3. Notice that:
   • Preference window's icon is removed from Mac's "Dock"
   • Whale icon is removed from Mac's "menu bar"
   • Docker is still running in the background (verified with docker ps)
   • Running Docker from Mac's launchpad will not bring back the Whale icon in the menu bar.
4. User is left in a broken state with no way to mange the running docker-desktop: management is done via the lost whale icon in the mac menu bar and there is no clear way to restore it.

Workaround
The only way (that I've found) to restore back the missing whale icon in the menu bar is by running this command on the CLI (or perhaps rebooting):

/Applications/Docker.app/Contents/MacOS/Docker