The Dock is one of the key tools for navigating the macOS interface. But there’s more to it than you might realize. Let’s take a look at the best ways to customize your Dock.

1Add and Remove Items

Let’s begin with the basics. You can add apps, folders, and files to the Dock to make the things you need most often easily accessible.

Toadd an app to the Dock, open the Launchpad, find the app icon, and drag it into place. Alternatively, if the app is already open, you’ll see its icon on the right-hand side (or bottom) of the Dock. Either right-click on this and select Options > Keep in Dock or drag the icon leftwards into position.

The Keep in Dock option on macOS.

You can add files and folders by dragging them to the right side of the divider, near the trash icon. Remove anything from the Dock by clicking on it and dragging upwards until you see the word “Remove” appear.

You can alsopin websites as apps on the Dock.

2Hide the Dock

you may reclaim quite a bit of screen real estate by hiding the Dock. You then just move your mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen to make it appear as and when you need it.

To do this, right-click on the divider in the Dock and select “Turn Hiding On.” Alternatively, go to System Settings > Desktop & Dock and select “Automatically hide and show the Dock.”

Remove an app from the Dock.

3Change the Position of the Dock

Although I keep my Dock positioned at the bottom of the screen, some people swear by having it on the left (or right) edge instead. This can be particularly useful if you don’t want to keep it hidden but still want the extra vertical space.

Right-click on the divider on the Dock, select “Position on Screen,” and choose whether you want it on the left or right.

The setting to hide the Dock in macOS.

4Change the Size of the Dock

you’re able to also change the size of the Dock. Hover your mouse pointer over the divider until you see a double-headed arrow, then drag it up to make it bigger or down to make it smaller.

Use the “Turn Magnification On” setting if you’ve got the Dock set to a very small size; turn magnification off if your Dock is particularly large.

The Mac Dock on the left of the screen.

5Add a Spacer or Half Spacer to Organize Apps

To help organize the apps in the Dock, you can add spacers—blank spaces that are either the size of a full app icon or half the size of a full app icon. You do this using the Terminal.

To add a full-sized spacer, open the Terminal app and paste in the following command:

The double headed srrow to change the size of the Dock.

I prefer a half-sized spacer, which does the same job but takes up less room:

Use these commands to add as many spacers as you need. Press the Up cursor key to repeat a command without having to paste it in again. When you’re done, drag the spacers into position just as you would drag app icons.

The Mac Dock with half spacers.

6Make the Dock Appear Faster When Hidden

When you’ve got your Dock set to be hidden, you can speed up how quickly it appears by removing the animation effect it uses. When you place your mouse pointer on the bottom (or side, if applicable) of the screen, the Dock will pop open instantly.

Open the Terminal app, paste in this command, and hit Enter:

The Applications grid in the Dock.

To undo it and restore the animation, use this command:

7Add Your Applications Folder to the Dock

If you want to avoid cluttering your Dock with too many icons but still want easy access to your apps, you’re able to place your entire Applications folder there. Open the Finder and in the sidebar, you should see an “Applications” shortcut. Simply drag it to the right of the divider in the Dock.

Now, right-click on the icon and select “View Content as Grid.”

A hover effect over a selected app in the grid..

8Make App and Folder Grids Easier to Navigate

You get no visual feedback when you move your mouse pointer over an app or file in a grid on your Dock. To make the grid easier to navigate, you’re able to add a hover effect using a Terminal command.

Open Terminal and paste in this:

Activity Monitor running in the Dock.

Now open the grid and you’ll see that items become highlighted as you pass over them.

9Change and Customize Your App Icons

If you want to get creative with your Dock, you can change the icons for your apps, using your own designs or downloadable icon packs. This can be a fun thing to do, but there’s also a practical side when you’ve got two apps that have very similar icons and you need a better way to differentiate them.

We’ve got full instructions on how tochange app icons in macOSif you need them. In summary, locate the app in your Applications folder, right-click on it, and select Get Info. Now drag a square PNG or JPEG image, or an icon in the ICNS format, onto the icon in the top left corner of the Get Info window.

Finally, drag the app into your Dock (or remove it and re-add it if it’s already there) to see the new icon in place.

You can only change the icons of third-party apps, not the built-in Apple apps.

10Add the Activity Monitor to the Dock

Need to keep an eye on the performance of your Mac or its network use? you may do this using the Activity Monitor app, and you canadd it to your Dockto help you track performance in real-time.

Open Activity Monitor and go to View > Dock Icon. You can select one of four options to see a small chart showing the current or ongoing CPU activity, network use, or disk activity.

To get this in your Dock permanently, right-click on the icon, go to “Options,” and enable both “Keep in Dock” and “Open at Login.”