The Dock in macOS provides quick access to apps that you use often, but can sometimes get in the way, especially if you have a small screen. This way you can quickly show and hide it.
hide macOS dock
By default, the dock in macOS is shown at the bottom of the screen. You can store your favorite apps in it, so you don’t have to go to Launchpad or Finder all the time to launch them. Sometimes it is faster to run Spotlight (cmd + space) or similar app like Alfred to quickly launch apps, but in this tip, we’ll focus on the Dock.
You can determine exactly how the Dock behaves via ‘System Preferences> Dock’. You can also choose the position: left, bottom or top. Apple also gives you the option to automatically hide the Dock, although there is a slight delay in that. By the way, you do this by enabling the option ‘Show / hide automatically’.
Fortunately, there is something to do about the speed of the Dock. To show or hide the bar faster, you have to dive into Terminal. That sounds harder than it is:
- Open Spotlight (cmd + space), type ‘Terminal’ and hit enter;
- Enter the code defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0 and press enter;
- Then tap killall Dock and hit enter again to make the Dock reload.
If your Dock is set to automatically show / hide, you will notice that the aforementioned delay has disappeared. The figure behind -int in step 2 determines how quickly the bar disappears and appears. For example, if you put 10 here, it will take a few seconds before the dock is completely (in) visible. Of course you don’t want that.
→ Looking for more? Check out our Mac and iPhone tip page for many more helpful tips & tricks!