A Complete Guide to Customizing Dock on Mac

A Complete Guide to Customizing Dock on Mac

Unlike iOS, macOS on Mac offers quite a few customizations to change the look, feel, and function of the operating system. To get started, you can select the preferred default web browser, customize keyboard keys, and use third-party apps to optimize your Mac experience. The default dock on Mac is an area where Apple hasn’t made any significant changes. However, you can opt for the default settings on the Mac to customize the dock. And if that’s not enough, you can go for third-party options on the web.


Customize the dock on Mac

The macOS Dock normally appears at the bottom of your screen. The dock is customizable in a number of ways that you may not be familiar with, especially if you are a new Mac user.

In this article, we’ll discuss all of the built-in ways to modify the Mac Dock, and if you want to dig deeper, you can install third-party dock replacements from the web. Let’s start.

What is Dock on Mac

The Dock has been with the Mac for over a decade. It gives you a quick way to access the Finder (Mac’s built-in file manager) as well as your running apps, favorite apps, favorite files or folders, and of course the basket.


On the quay optoion

When you first set up your Mac, your Dock lives at the bottom of your screen in a translucent rectangle. Most users don’t care about its position, size, or default settings. However, macOS offers a dedicated Dock menu in System Preferences for making changes to the Dock. Let’s explore each option with step-by-step instructions.

First, we will talk about ways to change the position, appearance, size of the Dock, and then we will mention tips for customizing it with a third-party application.

Change the Dock size on your Mac

The Mac ecosystem includes hardware like MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, iMac, and a custom desktop. As a result, you may find the size of the default docking station too small or too large. Follow the steps to change dock size on Mac.

Step 1: Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac screen.

2nd step: Select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: Click on the Dock.


Go to the dock menu

Step 4: Drag the Size slider left or right to increase or decrease the size of the Dock.


Dock size

Step 5: Check the Maximize box to enable an animation that magnifies the Dock items your cursor hovers over.

Step 6: Drag the magnification slider left or right to increase or decrease the size of icons as your cursor hovers over them.


Dock magnification

Magnification is useful when using the dock on the big screen and there are too many apps on the dock.

Now that you’ve set your preferred dock size and magnification, it’s time to change the orientation of the dock.

Pro tip: You can change the size of the dock by hovering the cursor over the dock divider that separates apps from files and folders. The cursor changes to a double-sided arrow; click and drag to increase or decrease the dock size. No need to access system settings to make changes.

Change Dock Position on Mac

I agree with the default dock position at the bottom. The majority stick with the default dock orientation as well, but if you’re coming from Linux, you’ll appreciate Apple’s added customization option. Follow the steps below to change the dock position left / right on the Mac.

Step 1: Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac screen.

2nd step: Select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: Click on the Dock.


Go to the dock menu

Step 4: Select Left, Bottom, or Right to change the orientation of the Dock.


Dock position

Pro tip: You can change the Dock’s location by holding down the Shift key, clicking this divider, and dragging the Dock to the left, bottom, or right sides of the screen.

Hide or show the Dock on Mac

Similar to the taskbar on Windows, you can completely hide the Dock on the Mac to maximize screen area. If you don’t want the Dock to hamper your productivity, you can keep it hidden until you want to access it, at which point you can recall it by hovering your cursor over where it normally resides.

Step 1: Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac screen.

2nd step: Go to System Preferences> Dock.


Go to the dock menu

Step 3: Enable Auto-hide and show Dock option.


Hide the dock

Pro tip: You can enable / disable most of these options from the Dock itself. Just right click on an empty space in the Dock and make changes.

Hide recent apps in the Dock in macOS

Much like iPadOS on iPad, macOS places recently used apps by users in a special section of the Dock. If you’re not a fan, turn off the option in the Dock menu.

Step 1: Access the Dock menu in the System Preferences menu.

2nd step: Check the box next to Show recent apps in Dock so that the checkmark disappears (it is on by default).


Show recent apps

Why do you need a third party docking station replacement

As you can see, you can make a few changes to the look of the dock, but that’s not enough. Sometimes you need a dock that blends in with your other UIs and the like. Well, Apple doesn’t offer that now.

Apple hasn’t made any major changes to the dock over the past decade. On the other hand, Windows and Linux made the launch systems quite impressive. Windows, for example, gives you an overview of the PC through the Start menu.

A third-party Dock replacement will not completely remove the default Dock from the operating system. You can only hide and rearrange the dock. Indeed, the dock is linked to certain native macOS functions. Removing the dock will not work well with some features.

Instead, these third-party apps hide the default macOS dock so well that you won’t notice the old dock during simple navigation. One of these applications is ActiveDock.

ActiveDock

ActiveDock is a complete replacement for Apple Launchpad and Dock with many new features. ActiveDock allows documents and applications to be grouped together, to switch between applications and windows more quickly, to manage windows directly from the Window Preview panel.

Besides, you can customize the appearance of the icons and the dock itself as per your requirement. At the same time, ActiveDock looks and behaves exactly like Apple Dock. So you won’t need to get used to it. It’s the same Dock, only better.


Customizing the active dock

My favorite feature is window previews to quickly identify open apps while switching between them. But it doesn’t stop there. It allows you to resize windows to various predefined sizes directly from an app preview.

ActiveDock offers you to group different elements in a single view. This is useful when you want to keep all the relevant resources for a project accessible from the dock. You can add apps, files, folders, and photos – anything works as long as it’s accessible through Finder.


Active platform group

As for the customization, you can switch to a different theme for the dock and add custom icons for the apps. You can select new icons for the Start menu, Trash, and Show Desktop from any of the available presets. Cared for!

ActiveDock offers a trial version with a price of $ 25 to unlock all the features.

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Improve the Dock experience on Mac

Using the tips mentioned above, you can easily change the default appearance of macOS dock on Mac. If you’re not happy with the built-in options, go for a third-party Dock app to spruce up the Mac experience. How do you optimize the Dock on Mac? Sound off in the comments section below.

Then:

Looking to get productive with your new Mac? Read the article below to find the seven best Mac apps to stay organized.

Last updated Sep 19, 2020

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