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How to add spaces to the dock on macOS

richbell 3y ago
The dock is one of the most frustrating parts of macOS. Adding spaces is helpful, but I wish that it was possible to only show apps in the current screen/desktop.
- bobwaycott 3y ago
  Interesting. I never use the dock, so the most frustrating thing to me is when it pops up under my cursor and gets in the way of a window. Hiding it is the first thing I do on every Mac. I wish there was a simple setting to disable it completely.
  - dontlaugh 3y ago
    Also interesting that I quite like it, especially the app centric model. I get annoyed at Windows behaving differently.
  - sillywalk 3y ago
    This is back from Mountain Lion, so Not sure if this is still the case, but you can set it to only appear after say 1000 seconds... defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 1000 && killall Dock to reset defaults delete com.apple.Dock autohide-delay && killall Dock https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/09/how-to-disable-the-dock-in-mountain-lion/ https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/09/how-to-disable-the-doc...
    - bobwaycott 3y ago
      I’ll have to give this a try and see if it still works. Thanks!
  - richbell 3y ago
    I'm curious, what do you use to navigate between applications if you hide the dock?
    - jlokier 3y ago
      Not the person you replied to. I use Cmd-Tab for most app switching, and trackpad configured for four-finger swipe up/down (Mission Control / App Exposé). The dock is set to auto-hide and I rarely use it for navigation.
    - bobwaycott 3y ago
      I use my keyboard. Typically, I switch via Raycast (or a similar tool like Spotlight, Alfred, etc): ctrl+space, then I type the first letter or two of the app I want, then hit enter. Same thing for starting all apps. If I know the app I’m switching to was the last active app, I’ll occasionally use cmd+tab. Once cmd+tab is visible, I’ll sometimes use my arrow keys to move between apps. If I’m switching between active windows of the same app, cmd+`. This is handy for switching between browser windows that have sets of tabs based on what I’m working on, docs I’m referencing, things I’m reading, etc. My terminal is bound to option+space, so it’s easy to switch to (and I start it with Raycast as explained above). I also rely on Raycast for positioning all my windows to different sizes and quadrants of the screen with my keyboard. I used to use different apps for all these use cases, but Raycast handles them all and more—calculations, looking up words in the dictionary, etc.

The dock is one of the most frustrating parts of macOS. Adding spaces is helpful, but I wish that it was possible to only show apps in the current screen/desktop.

bobwaycott 3y ago
Interesting. I never use the dock, so the most frustrating thing to me is when it pops up under my cursor and gets in the way of a window. Hiding it is the first thing I do on every Mac. I wish there was a simple setting to disable it completely.
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  Also interesting that I quite like it, especially the app centric model. I get annoyed at Windows behaving differently.
- sillywalk 3y ago
  This is back from Mountain Lion, so Not sure if this is still the case, but you can set it to only appear after say 1000 seconds... defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 1000 && killall Dock to reset defaults delete com.apple.Dock autohide-delay && killall Dock https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/09/how-to-disable-the-dock-in-mountain-lion/ https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/09/how-to-disable-the-doc...
  - bobwaycott 3y ago
    I’ll have to give this a try and see if it still works. Thanks!
- richbell 3y ago
  I'm curious, what do you use to navigate between applications if you hide the dock?
  - jlokier 3y ago
    Not the person you replied to. I use Cmd-Tab for most app switching, and trackpad configured for four-finger swipe up/down (Mission Control / App Exposé). The dock is set to auto-hide and I rarely use it for navigation.
  - bobwaycott 3y ago
    I use my keyboard. Typically, I switch via Raycast (or a similar tool like Spotlight, Alfred, etc): ctrl+space, then I type the first letter or two of the app I want, then hit enter. Same thing for starting all apps. If I know the app I’m switching to was the last active app, I’ll occasionally use cmd+tab. Once cmd+tab is visible, I’ll sometimes use my arrow keys to move between apps. If I’m switching between active windows of the same app, cmd+`. This is handy for switching between browser windows that have sets of tabs based on what I’m working on, docs I’m referencing, things I’m reading, etc. My terminal is bound to option+space, so it’s easy to switch to (and I start it with Raycast as explained above). I also rely on Raycast for positioning all my windows to different sizes and quadrants of the screen with my keyboard. I used to use different apps for all these use cases, but Raycast handles them all and more—calculations, looking up words in the dictionary, etc.