Once in jiggle mode, tap the app page dot icons just above the Dock at the bottom of the screen. Tap to uncheck any app pages that you want to hide. Tap Done in the top-right corner of the screen. Oct 18, 2019 macOS lets you work in full screen not matter which app you’re working in. Full screen app support on macOS is ahead of the curve; a full screen app acts like a desktop space, and you can pin two apps side by side in full screen mode.In full screen, you get a distraction free work space but if you want something a little similar on the desktop, you can hide the menu bar and Dock. Tip: You can make the Dock larger or smaller, add or remove items, move it to the left or right side of the screen, and even set it to hide when you’re not using it.To change how the Dock looks, click the System Preferences icon in the Dock, or choose Apple menu System Preferences. Then click Dock.
The Dock in macOS is more flexible than you may realize. Change the size, location, color and more to fit your personal preferences.
The Dock is one of Apple’s most iconic features. It showcases the intuitive nature of their design while remaining highly customizable!
Anyone can change what app shortcuts are available on the Dock. But what you may not realize is that you can also customize the Dock’s size, color, location, and more.
Contents
Related Posts:Change the Size
The dock automatically resizes depending on how many apps it holds.However, you can also resize the icons themselves, making the Dock much larger or smaller.
There are two ways to do this: with the mouse or through the System Preferences.
Using the mouse is quickest. Simply hover it over one of the vertical dividers on the Dock and drag up or down to make the Dock bigger or smaller. If that wasn’t easy enough, open the System Preferences and click the Dock button. The slider at the top of the window adjusts your Dock size.
Turn On Magnification
Magnification enlarges icons on the Dock as you hover your mouse over them. This is great for if you’ve got lots of icons, a small Dock, or a sight impairment.
Turn on Magnification by going to the Dock menu of System Preferences and ticking the Magnification checkbox. The slider to the right allows you to alter the amount of magnification to your personal taste.
Change the Location
By default, the Dock sits at the bottom of the screen. However, if you prefer you could move it to the left or right edge instead. Depending on how you use your Mac, this might make it easier to access the Dock when you need it.
Change the location of the Dock by holding shift while you click and drag one of the vertical dividers. Pull your mouse to a different edge of the screen to see the Dock relocate to that position.
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Alternatively, in the Dock System Preferences, you can choose where you want the Dock to be positioned by selecting one of three options: Left, Bottom, or Right.
Hide the Dock
Free up some Desktop real estate by hiding your Dock when you don’t need it.
This handy feature allows more space for multitasking while keeping the Dock within easy reach off the screen. When you want the Dock to reappear, move your mouse to the screen’s edge and it will pop out — just like in fullscreen mode.
You can hide or show the Dock at any time by pressing cmd+alt+D. Or go to the Dock options in System Preferences and tick ‘Automatically hide and show the Dock’.
Change the Color
With Dark Mode on, the Dock, menu bar, Notification Centre, Finder windows, Spotlight search, and more will be dark grey or black giving a sleek new look to macOS.
Turn on Dark Mode by going into the General menu of your System Preferences. Two boxes of the top give the options of Light or Dark color schemes.
Favorite Apps
The largest part of the Dock holds shortcuts to your favorite apps. They’re easy to add, remove, or reorder by clicking and dragging the icons.
To remove an app, drag it off of the Dock or into the Trash — don’t worry, it’ll still be available to in Spotlight or Finder.
Alternately drag apps onto the Dock from the Finder window to add them to your favorites. You could also drag apps from the recent applications section of the Dock into your favorites to create permanent shortcuts.
Recent Applications
This new section of the Dock sits between favorite apps and the stack and files. It updates automatically with whatever apps are currently running or to show three recently used applications.
You can turn this feature on or off in the System Preferences. Under the Dock menu, check or uncheck the box labeled ‘Show recent applications in Dock’.
Stacks and Files
The farthest right section of the Dock is used to store stacks, files, and the Trash.
Stacks and files can be added to the Dock by dragging any files or folders from the Finder. Keeping them here makes them easily accessible and is useful if you use certain items frequently.
Stacks work just like folders: click to open and see all the files inside. By control-clicking a stack, you can customize how it opens: fan grid or list. You can also choose to view it as a traditional folder icon.
Extra EffectsOpen Indicators
The little round dots that appear beneath icons on the Dock indicate whether that application is running or not. You can turn this effect on or off using the Systems Preferences checkbox labeled ‘Show indicators for open applications’.
Opening Animations
The System Preferences checkbox labeled ‘Animate opening applications’ determines whether or not icons bounce up and down upon opening. Some users have suggested that turning this feature off improves performance in macOS, although for most users the difference appears to be negligible at best.
Minimize Effect
The Minimize effect allows you to move an application’s window to the Dock when you aren’t using it. This is a great organization method and can help to clear multiple windows when working.
Through the System Preferences, you can choose to store minimized windows within the app’s icon or to keep them in a row alongside your Stacks and Files. You can also choose to have a window minimize when you double-click its title bar.
We hope that gives you some insight into how to customize the Dock on macOS. Experiment to find your favorite settings and let us know them in the comments!
Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.
He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.
Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.
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Utilities • Feb.10, 2019
Apple updates macOS pretty frequently, you know. Every year, you get some cool features too, like the Dark Mode in macOS Mojave.
However, there’s something in macOS that Apple hasn’t really updated in the past decade — Dock.
Despite being the central element for navigation, macOS dock still lags. If you’re a normal user, the dock would be pretty smooth.
When you are a professional, there are more reasons to hate the dock than to love it.
Let’s have a look at where the default macOS dock falls behind.
Why is the default macOS Dock not enough?
Let’s consider things one by one.
First, as we said, Apple has brought no major changes to the dock in the last decade. On the other hand, Windows and Linux have made the launch-systems quite awesome. Windows, for instance, gives you an overview of the PC via the Start Menu.
The default dock on macOS has no window management features. Of course, you can use multi-finger gestures to move between full-screen windows. However, when you have too many windows on the screen, the Dock doesn’t help.
We also think the UI of the dock is pretty basic. Today, we need more control in handling multiple windows and applications. It’s great to have features like app progress icons, badges and activity. When I’m running 10 apps and 20 windows, that can be quite helpful.
Customization isn’t the best part about macOS dock. You can make a few changes to the way it looks, but it is not enough. Sometimes, you need a dock that blends in with your other UI and stuff, right? Well, Apple is not offering that now.
These are reasons for people to think of removing the dock from macOS.
A word on removing Dock from Mac
Ever thought of getting rid of macOS dock completely?
Unfortunately, that’s not possible. You can hide and rearrange the dock, but complete removal is not going to happen. This is because the dock is linked to some native functions in macOS. Removing the dock would tamper those features as well.
However, some of the dock replacement apps manage to hide the macOS dock so well. When you are using these apps, the old dock won’t bother you.
You basically have two options:
One, you can customize the macOS dock to suit your convenience.
Two, you can use a dock replacement app for an all-new experience.
Let’s talk about customization first.
Top tips to customize the macOS Dock
So, there are a few ways to customize how the dock looks and performs. Sometimes, this would be better than going for a fully-fledged dock replacement. Let’s check out some of the popular tips.
Getting Started: macOS has a few built-in utilities to customize the dock. You can access these settings by going to System Preferences -> Dock.
Size & magnification
You can adjust the display size of the dock. There is also an option to enable the Magnification effect. It also lets you choose how much it zooms into the icons.
Position on screen
You can arrange the dock at the right, left or bottom portion of the screen. If you are moving from something like Ubuntu, you may like the left position for Dock.
Auto-hide Dock
If the dock is distracting you all the time, you can enable Auto-Hide feature. This way, the dock will be hidden upon no activity. You can move the cursor to the bottom of the screen to reopen the dock.
Icon management
By default, dock shows the most-used apps on the bar, right? Well, you can remove individual icons from a context menu. Or, just hold the icon and put it on the Trash icon. Simple enough, isn’t it?
Miscellaneous
Dock Preferences also lets you change a few things like Minimizing Effect, double-click action on windows and what all icons are shown on the dock.
If you think these customization tips can solve your issues, you don’t need a dock replacement app. However, if you need more control over how the dock looks and performs, let’s continue.
Top apps to replace Dock on Mac
These apps basically replace the default dock on macOS.
This way, these apps can offer a rather new way to manage your windows, icons and more.
Shall we have a look at them?
The pick: uBar 4
uBar is the best choice when you want a complete dock replacement app for macOS. It’s quite rich when it comes to features and offers a revamped navigation experience as well. If you are looking for some radical change from what the default macOS dock offers, uBar is a great choice. It offers the perfect blend of cooler features and maximum control.
Getting started
It’s really easy to get started with uBar 4 on your Mac. Once the installation is done, you can open uBar and see the brand-new taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Yes, the basic design resembles the Windows task-bar you have seen before. However, uBar is cleaner and minimalistic.
By default, uBar would show the running apps on your Mac. You can click on the icon to move to the correct window as well. Depending on the application, uBar can offer Window Previews as well. It’s a feature you’d have missed while shifting from Windows to macOS, right?
On the left side of the taskbar, you can see a uBar icon as well. This feature is aimed to resemble the Start Menu in Windows. You can access a variety of material using this UI, such as applications, files and some part of system controls as well.
In short, uBar is offering a navigation experience that is quite different from that of macOS dock. Interested in the best part? uBar can practically hide the default macOS dock. Throughout our testing, we did not find the default dock popping up.
Altogether, it feels really easy to install and get started with uBar 4.
Window management
uBar 4 is the best shot when you want to manage multiple windows from multiple apps. This is where one of the best features of uBar comes in handy.
Window Grouping refers to the option of bundling multiple windows from a single app. For instance, if you have two windows open in Chrome, both of them will be displayed side-by-side.
Window Previews are also helpful here. This is something we’ve missed in the default macOS dock for long. You can place the cursor on an application window name to see what’s going on.
So, you can click on one window to jump straight into that.
There are also a few other cool things when it comes to window management. For instance, uBar shows a few icons to represent the state of the window. You can see a hatched red background if an application isn’t responding.
Similarly, uBar supports a few keyboard shortcuts as well. For instance, you can hold Shift button and press on a window to instantly close it. These keyboard shortcuts can be quite handy once you master it. Last but not least, you get features like App Progress, App Flashes and App Activity.
It feels really easy to manage multiple windows and apps when you have uBar.
App To Hide Apps In The Dock On Macos ComputerCustomization
uBar is undoubtedly the most customizable dock replacement app for Mac. You can change almost anything from the interface. Most importantly, you can configure uBar in two ways — as a task bar or as a dock. You just have to change a few settings to enable each of these modes.
Customization is available in almost every sector of the app. Generally, you can change how uBar appears on the screen. For instance, you can enable Window grouping, change the position of the task bar, enable or disable pinning and adjust the size of the task-bar.
You can also choose between different themes and color schemes. It’s wonderful that you can change even the accent color of the dock. uBar also lets you decide which elements are present on the bar. For instance, you can remove the clock and battery bar if you want more space for window management.
Last but not the least, you can also decide which entries appear in the menus. It’s great if you just want the most important entries in the menu. As far as customization is concerned, uBar can do everything Dock does. It also does more than what Dock hasn’t managed to do.
Additional features
There are a few additional features in uBar that we loved.
All these features go well with the minimal UI and design of uBar, which is great.
What could be better
There aren’t many flaws or bugs in uBar. However, we think the following aspects could be better.
Mac Hide Apps From Dock
It’d be great to have some pre-sets for uBar customization. Now, changing from taskbar to dock will require a few clicks. It would be great to get that done in a single click.
While the UI is great and cool, it’s surely a transition from the native design philosophy of macOS. At times, you may feel a little out of place.
Apart from these, everything’s perfect. Availability & pricing
uBar is available for Mac devices running macOS 10.10 or later. You can try uBar free of cost for 14 days.
Personal license of this dock replacement app is available for $30 while you can get the Commercial one for $50. uBar is also available on Setapp.
Verdict
We still believe that uBar is the best dock replacement app for macOS devices. It’s a complete transition to something that looks like Microsoft Windows, but the features are worth it. By upgrading to uBar, you can enhance your overall productivity for sure. We think that’s something that matters.
Also great — ActiveDock
If you are looking for something different, ActiveDock is a great consideration. Unlike uBar, ActiveDock does not feel like transitioning towards the Windows User Interface. Instead, ActiveDock works as if your default macOS dock is on steroids. In other words, this dock replacement app brings some of the cool features we’ve always wanted in the default dock package.
Compared to uBar, ActiveDock focuses on how you can arrange different resources on the dock. You will be able to create folders and groups on the dock, for instance. You can bring in files and apps inside the groups for quicker access. There is also a start-menu-like system, where you can find the apps and other locations in your Mac.
ActiveDock is more customizable than the other dock replacement apps we have covered here. You will be able to change almost every aspect of the dock. For instance, you can change the icons present on the dock as well as the background colors and stuff. There are also a number of ActiveDock themes you can check out for the best performance.
Coming to Window Management, ActiveDock checks all the boxes. You have window previews and the whole management endeavour is pretty smooth. Despite being a third-party program, ActiveDock gels well with the macOS system. It should be noted, however, that ActiveDock is creating another dock and not making changes to the existing dock.
Long story short, ActiveDock is great if you need a dock replacement app that resembles the default dock. In this case, you are getting a lot of features in a simple package as well. We’d recommend this if you can’t handle such a steep shift we found in uBar.
ActiveDock is available for macOS and is priced at $49.99 for a lifetime license. You can get a one-year license for $19.99 as well.
![]() Other options we considered
Now, let’s have a look at some other dock replacement or dock customization apps we considered. Though they didn’t make it to the top position, you can count these apps on for dedicated needs.
HyperDock is one of the coolest dock replacement apps in the market for sure. The best part about this app is that it does not remove your dock. Instead, it makes changes to your existing dock. For instance, it brings the much-awaited Window Preview feature to the default lock. This makes HyperDock the best choice when you don’t want to leave the good-old dock.
It’s true that HyperDock does not have many features. You have the basic things cleared for managing many windows and popular apps like iTunes. HyperDock can also show you quick details from Calendar app. If you ask us, this app makes it really easy to live with the default dock. Nevertheless, you end up paying an amount that could actually buy you a fully-featured tool.
HyperDock is available for macOS and costs $9.95.
Do you know that you can customize the function of dock using Terminal commands? Well, the Dockey app for macOS brings all these features into a simple UI. Dockey is not the typical dock replacement app we have covered above. It just lets you make changes to the dock in a few clicks. For instance, you can change the position and animation style of the dock.
As far as advanced dock preferences are concerned, Dockey gets the job done. Once you have changed the settings, you can save them and everything will come into effect. It’s pretty great that you can even adjust the animation delay and animation speed in the package. If you are looking for a rather polished dock in your Mac, Dockey should do the job.
Dockey is available for macOS and is completely free to use.
Overflow 3 is not a dedicated dock replacement app for Mac. Instead, we are looking at a visual launcher for macOS devices. It has been designed to help you easily launch programs and other content you want. Since you have the complete freedom to set things up, you will have a custom-made place to start everything. For instance, you can add your favourite apps as well as some important files.
Flexibility is the reason why you should consider something like Overflow 3. Once set up, you will have one centralized place to focus on. If you use multiple apps and files for work, you can add everything into one page in Overflow 3. Because the designs can be customized in the long run, you have complete control also. In addition, Overflow 3 comes with full keyboard support and URL compatibility.
How To Hide Apps On Mac Dock
Overflow 3 is available for macOS. You can try it for free, but the license costs $14.95.
How To Hide Apps In Dock MacThe final verdict
We have talked about more than a few ways to deal with your under-efficient macOS dock. You can either move into a better dock replacement app like uBar or ActiveDock, for a smoother performance. On the other hand, if you need more control over how the default dock behaves, we’d recommend HyperDock or Dockey.
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