The Dock is one of the primary ways you interact with your Mac—it covers everything from opening and closing apps to quickly accessing your Documents or Downloads. However, many people still don’t know some of the most basic uses of Mac’s Dock and how you can customize it to match your preferences. That’s what we’ll get into here.
The Anatomy of the Dock
Before we jump into how you can customize your Dock, it’s helpful to know what your Dock holds and how to refer to the respective sections of it.
The Dock contains two to three sections, separated by lines or separators. The leftmost side contains all the apps you’ve added to the Dock. Moving right, past the first separator, it shows up to three recently used apps that aren’t saved in the Dock already. This is also where you’ll find the Handoff icon if you’re using the Handoff feature with another Apple device.
At the rightmost side of the Dock is where you’ll find your Downloads, Trash, shortcuts to files and folders, and any windows you’ve minimized.
How to Interact With the Mac’s Dock
Here are several ways to interact with apps in the Dock:
How to Quit Apps From the Mac Dock
On your Dock, you’ll see that some apps have dots underneath them. The dots indicate that these apps are running right now. Even if you click the little red button in the top-left corner of a window, the app might keep running in the background if it’s beneficial to do so, like with an email app.
To completely quit an app from the Dock, Control-click on its icon and choose Quit—you’ll see the dot disappear. If the app is being especially problematic, repeat the step, but this time, hold the Option key, then select Force Quit.
How to Add or Remove Items From the Dock
There are a few ways to add an application to your Mac’s Dock. First, you can open Finder, choose Applications in the sidebar, and find the app you would like to add. When you’ve found it, click and drag the application to the main section of the Dock.
If the app you want to add is already in the Dock, either because you’re currently using it or recently used it, just Control-click on the app in the Dock, then select Options > Keep In Dock.
Files and folders can also be pinned to your Dock using the same method, but they must live on the right-hand side (or bottom) with the Trash and Downloads stack. When you do this, you don’t really add the item to the Dock; instead, you create an alias or a shortcut to it. The original file doesn’t move from its original file location.
How to Remove and Reorder Items in the Dock
Apple only requires that two items remain in your Dock—Finder and Trash. For the rest, you’re free to remove or reorder them however you want.
To remove items from the Dock, click and drag the icon away from it until you see a Remove option pop up. You can also remove apps by Control-clicking the icon in the Dock, selecting Options, and disabling Keep In Dock.
Note: Currently-open applications will always appear in the Dock, whether you have added them or not. If you have removed an application from your Dock, and it’s still showing up, it’s probably still running in the background.
You can reorder any apps (except Finder and Trash) by simply clicking and dragging them within the Dock itself. However, they must stay within their respective sections.
Assign Apps to Different Mac Desktops
One convenient macOS feature is the ability to open multiple desktops to virtually increase the screen space you have available for all your apps. If you’re using multiple desktops, you can assign certain apps to only open on a specific desktop. This is also useful if you’re using multiple monitors with your Mac.
To assign an app to a specific desktop, go to the desktop where you want it to be, Control-click the app in the Dock, then choose Options > Assign To: This Desktop. Now, when you open the app, it will appear in the desktop you have chosen. Undo this by choosing Options > Assign To: None.
How to Display Folders as Stacks in the Dock
Another handy feature is the ability to expand folders in the Dock. To do this, Control-click on a folder and choose Display as: Stack. Now, every time you click the folder on the Dock, its contents will expand, allowing you to access files at your leisure without needing to open a new Finder window to do so.
You have the option to view the folder content as a Grid, Fan, or List. Just Control-click the folder, then select from one of these views.
Pinning your Downloads folder as a stack is one of the best things you can do for your workflow, and the same could be said for the Desktop (if you use it), Dropbox, Google Drive, and similar cloud-based storage services.
How to Customize Your Mac’s Dock
There are a few changes that you can make to customize your Mac’s Dock to your liking. Go to System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar to start customizing your Mac’s Dock according to your preferences.
Position
Your Dock is at the bottom of the screen by default, but you can move it to the left or right of the screen instead. Just select one from Left, Bottom, or Right.
Effects
The Genie effect is a cool whooshing effect that happens whenever you minimize a window. However, the Scale effect has less motion and may be beneficial for people who have problems with too much screen motion.
Similarly, deselecting Animate opening applications removes the bouncing effect on apps when you open an application.
Minimize Destination
Select Minimize windows into application if you don’t want the minimized window to appear on the right side of the Dock as a separate icon from the app. The downside to this is you can’t instantly see if you’ve got any minimized windows.
Auto Hide the Dock
Some people may find that the Dock takes up too much screen space. Just tick Automatically hide and show the Dock for it to hide when not engaged by your pointer. To bring it back, just move your mouse to the bottom of the screen and the Dock will appear.
Size and Magnification
Toggle the slider for Size to adjust the Dock size and tick the box beside Magnification and adjust its slider to help enlarge apps in the Dock found under your cursor.
Recent Applications in Dock
Deselecting Show recent applications in Dock will remove that section in your Mac’s Dock.
Show Indicators
You have the option to lose the dots below open apps by deselecting Show indicators for open applications. This makes it harder to know which apps are open.
Improve Your Dock Experience
The Dock is a useful utility that makes a Mac much more effortless to use and navigate. Level up the experience even more by learning all the tricks you can do with it and customizing it to your liking.