Master the Mac Dock In 5 Minutes

The Dock is an important part of macOS that allows you to quickly launch apps and access files. You can customize the Dock to include what you want.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me teach you all about using the Mac Dock. 
One of the primary tools you need to master on your Mac is the Dock. It's this strip of icons that appears at the bottom of your Mac's screen. It is primarily used to launch apps. If you want to launch Notes just find the Notes icon in the Dock and click on it. Then Notes will launch. You can also Drag & Drop to it. If I wanted to open this CSV file in the Numbers App I can Drag the CSV file to the Numbers icon in the Dock, drop it there and it would open up that file with that app. 
So if you wanted to rearrange the icons in the Dock you can do that by simply clicking and dragging the icon to the right or to the left. You can remove an app from the Dock by dragging it up and then wait until you see the word Remove appear above and then just release. Keep in mind that the icons you see here are not the apps themselves, but links to the apps which are in your Applications Folder. If you remove something from the Dock it doesn't uninstall the app from your Mac. It's still there and you can launch it other ways.
Now you can also add apps to the Dock. There are many ways to do this. One is to first launch the app. So, for instance, I'm going to use Spotlight, Command Space, to launch TextEdit. I'll notice that it appears here towards the right in this middle section of the Dock. Once it is here if you want to permanently want to keep it in the Dock even if the app isn't running you can drag it to the left and place it on the left side. 
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Another way to add apps to the Dock is to go to the Applications Folder in the Finder. You can click and drag any application and place it here in the Dock. The Dock also includes an icon for Launchpad. Click that and it will bring up a list of all of the apps installed on your Mac. So with Launchpad the Dock gives you access to all of your apps. The Dock also gives you access to more functions using the Context Menu for each icon. You can get to the Context Menu by holding the Control key down and clicking on the icon. You can also get to it by using right click on a mouse, two-finger click on a trackpad. You can get to it by simply clicking and holding and it will appear there as well. Apps that aren't running will only have a few items available here in the Context Menu. But once an app is running you have more options. For instance, TextEdit is running here. If I bring up the Context Menu I'll see recently used documents, currently opened windows (many of these are on my second screen), and other functions like the ability to create a new document. 
While the left and middle sections of the Dock can hold application icons the right side of the Dock can hold files and folders. Let's say there's a file that you access all the time. You can drag that file to the right side of the Dock, drop it in there, and then click on it to open that document very easily. If you were to add a folder to the right side, like this, then clicking on it will give you a list of the items there and you can click on individual icons to open those. If you Control Click on them to bring up the Context Menu you have the ability to display the icon as a stack of other icons or a folder. You can view the content as a fan, grid, or a list. 
The Dock is also used when you minimize windows. That is you click the yellow button in a window here. It will minimize to the right side of the Dock. If I click on it, it brings the window back. It's a way to hide a single window while keeping other windows for that app visible. 
Now let's take a look at some Dock settings. We're going to go to System Settings and then to Desktop & Dock. You can change the size of the icons here. You can Drag to the left to make them smaller. But you can only make them as large as there is space available at the bottom of the screen. You can also turn on Magnification which makes the icons larger as you move your pointer over them. The Dock can be positioned on the bottom of the screen or you can have it, say, on the right side of the screen or the left side of the screen as well. There's an option here to tell how minimize works. If I were to turn this option here then Minimizing minimizes into the icon for that app. Turning on Automatically Hide and Show the Dock will Hide the Dock normally until you move your pointer to the bottom of the screen and then it appears. Show Suggested & Recent Apps in the Dock controls this middle section here. If I turn it Off then the suggested icons will no longer appear. But any app I'm running that isn't normally in the Dock will appear on the right side of the left section. Like these two apps do right now. 
So now that you know how to use the Dock you should remove any apps that you've never used. Add other apps that you often use that aren't here in the Dock. Then arrange them as you like, perhaps with your most commonly used apps to the left. Then continue to add to, remove from, rearrange and adjust the Dock as needed. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 12 Responses to “Master the Mac Dock In 5 Minutes”

Stephen Schulte

1 month ago

I am testing macOS Sequoia on a new Mac alongside macOS Sonoma on my other Mac. I’ve noticed that when you set Sequoia to hide the dock and you then want to show the dock you drop the pointer to the bottom of the screen, but with Sequoia, instead of appearing instantaneously like in Sonoma, it takes up to three seconds for the dock to appear in Sequoia!! Why is that and is there a solution for that? Thank you.

Gary Rosenzweig

Stephen: I haven't noticed any change to the time it takes for the Dock to appear: that is it took a few seconds before Sequoia as well. I think it has to do a lot with what else is on your screen and going on. Like a Full Screen app vs a Desktop Space, etc.

I’ve looked at this for several hours now and the difference is night and day. My Intel Mac running Sonoma has the dock pop-up instantaneously which has always been the case for the last 20 years and the M4 Mac mini running sequoia is 2 to 3 seconds maybe even longer very strange. I’m going to look at this terminal command that someone is talking about and see if that changes anything. For now it’s so slow that I’m just leaving the dock where it is. I’m not hiding the dock. More later.

Carmen hartman

Thanks so much for the video it sure helped this 84 yo. Carmen Hartman

Steve

Speaking as a new user as of last year, I spent hours searching for a way to add the vertical bars so I could get some visual separation between groups of my icons. Eventually found a command line option to insert spaces. I think that would be a useful addition to an intro video like this.

Also, if you're looking for other intro topics, even a year in I'm still not entirely sure how to install programs. Sometimes its just drop it in App folder, other times its dblclick.

Steve: I've covered the divider in the past, but definitely no room for it in a 5-minute intro like this. As for installing, here's the one I did recently on that: https://macmost.com/how-many-mac-third-party-app-installs-work.html

Addressing this comment to the person Steve above, I certainly would like to learn more about a command line instruction to be able to insert vertical bars. If you could elaborate on that or send a link or references to how to do it that would be great thank you.

Stephen: I have a video on it here: https://macmost.com/adding-spacers-to-the-dock.html
But if you are not a patron of MacMost, you can't access it. But the description includes the code and you can access that.

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

Kim

Another great video. Always good to have a refresher. Thank you Gary.

Nan Holcomb

4 weeks ago

Just agree, another great video. Thanks!

Joel

3 weeks ago

Once again, another great video and explanation!

Master the Mac Dock In 5 Minutes

Comments: 12 Responses to “Master the Mac Dock In 5 Minutes”

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