Clean Up Your Mac’s Dock

Take the time to clean up and customize your Dock to improve your productivity. These 10 tips are quick and easy to do.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's look at some simple steps you can take to clean up your Dock. 
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So the Dock can be one of the most useful tools on your Mac's Desktop. But how useful it is depends on whether you take the time to clean it up and customize it for your use. 
The first thing to do is to maybe get rid of apps that you really don't use. Here's the default set of apps in macOS Ventura 13.1. Chances are you don't use all of these on a regular basis. Remember just getting them out of the Dock doesn't mean you can't run them. It just means they are not listed here to be able to run them quickly. You can get rid of them by clicking and dragging up until you see the Remove indicator there. Then remove all of the different apps that you may not want. Your choices are going to be different than anybody else's. So do this specifically based on what you use and don't use. 
Next, you're going to want to add the apps that you do actually use all the time. The easiest way to do that is go to the Finder and create a new Finder window and then go to Applications. Now you're going to see all of your different apps. Go through this list and see if there is something that you use all the time that is not in the Dock. Then drag it down and put it in a position that makes sense for you. Once you've added any applications that you want take the time to organize the Dock and move the items, left and right, to get them in the order you like. You can always revise this later on. 
Now for the apps that you've decided to remove remember that you can always access them using Launchpad here. You don't actually have to click and launch Launchpad like that. You can click and hold or Control Click and it brings up a list of all of your apps. So, anything you've removed here can easily be accessed through Launchpad. For that reason alone you should leave Launchpad in the Dock even if you don't use it that often. If you have removed it you can always go back to the Applications folder and find it there and drag it back in. 
Now System Settings should be in the Dock by default. You can simply click it to launch System Settings. But, like with Launchpad, you can also Click and Hold or Control Click and it will bring up a list of all the different sections of System Settings. So you can jump right to a section. Given its similarity to Launchpad I suggest moving it all the way to the left putting it next to Launchpad. So now you've got the ability to launch any app by clicking Launchpad. You have the ability to get to any of your settings by clicking and holding System Settings. Then always to the left in the dock is the Finder and you could click and hold there and you have a variety of different things you can do like create a New Finder Window, Start a Search, Go To a Folder, See Recent Folders, etc. In fact you have a lot of great controls here now in the three items here to the left. It kind of feels a little bit like the windows Start Menu if that is something you like. 
Now on the right side of the Dock you may see three items here, the three recent apps that you've used, that aren't normally located in the Dock. The idea here is if you use an app that is not in the Dock normally it's readily available for you to go back to it again. But it does take up a lot of space so you may want to get rid of it. So if you go to System Settings and then to Desktop & Dock there's an option to get rid of this. Just switch this Off. Now those are gone. You're still going to see any apps that are currently running on the right but they won't remain there after you quit them. 
You may also have items here to the right of the line next to the Trashcan. These are Files and Folders you've added to the Dock. Apps go on the left and Files and Folders go on the right. So, for instance, by default you've got the Downloads Folder here. If you don't need this folder or anything else that you've placed over here on the right you can easily get rid of it just like any other thing in the Dock. But one thing you may want to add is a Link to your Documents Folder. This one item gives you a lot of power. So, in the Finder go to your Documents Folder. Go up a level from that. Then take your Documents Folder and drag it to the right side. This is where it really pays to organize all your files in your Documents Folder. Because if you do then you have every file you'll ever need right there. 
Now Control Click on this and set it to List View. Also have it display as a Folder and then set the Sort By to what you want. I'm going to leave it as Name but some people may want to have Date Modified as the Sort Order. Now if you click on this it gives you everything that is in your Documents Folder. You can dig down into subfolders to get to anything that you want. In fact you can even use keyboard shortcuts to get to any file that you want. For instance, you can use the Globe key and a or Control F3 to get to the Finder and then Left Arrow over to the Trash and then to Documents, Up Arrow into here and you can dig down into any folder to get to any document. 
Now another issue with the Dock is that it is always there. It takes up a lot of screen real estate. You can change that by going to System Settings and then to Desktop & Dock, and then in there you can set it to Automatically Hide and Show the Dock. Then the Dock is gone! Unless you move the pointer to the bottom and it appears. If you think about it the only time you can use the Dock is if you move your pointer to the bottom. So why not have it hidden until you actually go to use it. Note that using the Keyboard Shortcut like the Globe Key and a will bring it up as well. 
Now if you use the Minimize function, by default it will minimize to the right side of the Dock. If you minimize a bunch of windows it is going to fill up the Dock pretty quickly. However you do have a better option. Go into System Settings, Desktop & Dock, and then switch On Minimize Windows Into Application Icon. So now when you minimize a window instead of going into the right side it goes into the App. It doesn't take up any extra space in the Dock and you can click and hold on the App and then bring the window back. 
Another option you've got is the Dock size. If you've cleaned it up a lot and you don't have too many icons in here now the icons will expand to fill the space available to the Dock. But if you set the size to Small you can make the Dock pretty small and not get in the way as much. You also have the ability, if you want, to position the Dock on the left or right side of the screen instead of at the bottom. So it can appear on the side instead. Of course our screens are much wider than they are tall so sometimes, depending upon the apps you use and how you use windows and such, it could be more convenient to have the Dock on the side of the screen than on the bottom. 
So one last tip here. If you customize the Dock a lot but you decide you just want to start over again, you can Restore the Dock to its default settings. To do that launch Terminal and then defaults delete com.apple.dock; and then instead of a separate line just on the same line with a semi-colon you can do killall Dock which will relaunch the Dock. This just deletes the Preference File for the Dock. So when you do it now you'll see the Dock returns to its original settings. 
Taking a few minutes to customize your Dock now could save you a few seconds here, a few seconds there, and stretched out over weeks and months could be a good boost to your productivity. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 7 Responses to “Clean Up Your Mac’s Dock”

Rudy Chinchilla

11 months ago

Gary......You are the greatest!!!
Warm regards.

Mark McCluski

Holy cow, is this useful! I knew a bit about rearranging icons but your suggestions about configuring Launchpad, the systems folder and documents (ESPECIALLY documents) is going to streamline my looking for things more than somewhat!

Robert Williams

New computer with Ventura 13.1 installed. Quite often I have problems moving Applications to the left or right on the dock. Also can't remove Applications by dragging them up. If I come back later, I find that the problem has disappeared for some, but not all of the Applications.

Do I have a lemon computer?

Gary Rosenzweig

Robert: Make sure you don't try to drag them too far to the right. They must be on the left side of the line. As for dragging them up to remove them, make sure you drag pretty far up the screen. Also, it helps if they aren't running. If they are, they would stay in the Dock regardless as all running apps are shown. You can always Control+click and go to Options, Remove From Dock too.

petr wiblin

Morning Gary in Ventura 13.1dragging the icon up does not show the "remove" as in your EXCELLENT video

Petr: Not sure why it isn't working for you. Did you try other apps? Did you try dragging it up to the top half of the screen?

Todd

Great video, thank you for making it Gary. One comment, to save dock space. I do not keep Launchpad in the dock. Instead, what I find is even faster to access all my applications is to simply use a trackpad gesture (pinch with thumb and 3 fingers). There is a setting for this in Settings, Trackpad, More Gestures.

Clean Up Your Mac’s Dock

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