{"id":14116,"date":"2017-05-13T15:35:32","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T10:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/?p=14116"},"modified":"2017-05-13T15:35:32","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T10:05:32","slug":"customize-mac-dock-enhance-functionality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/customize-mac-dock-enhance-functionality\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Customize Mac Dock and Enhance Its Functionality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dock’s esteem is cardinal in macOS since it has been around for over 10 years. The Dock is the placeholder at the base of your Mac’s screen that shows open applications and permits you to pin applications and organizers to rapidly get to them. The Dock wasn’t created to be a customizer’s heaven yet it increases unpretentious elements in each macOS update. In case you’re hoping to energize your Mac’s Dock, you’re in the ideal place. Here are a few approaches to modify the Mac:<\/p>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n

Customize the macOS Dock Using Inbuilt System Preferences<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

First, let\u2019s customize the Dock using inbuilt settings. To open the Dock settings, click\u00a0CMD+space<\/strong>\u00a0to bring up the Spotlight search, type in \u201cDock<\/strong>\u201d and press enter. Alternatively, you can access Dock settings by going to System Preferences<\/strong>\u00a0>\u00a0Dock.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Customize<\/p>\n

Change Dock Size, Magnification and Position on Screen<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

You can adjust the\u00a0size and magnification<\/strong>\u00a0of the Dock using the sliders on this screen. The magnification, as its name implies, magnifies the Dock icons to make them larger when you hover the cursor over them. If you want, you can completely turn off magnification by unchecking the corresponding checkbox.<\/p>\n

By default, the Dock appears on the bottom of the screen. You can\u00a0change its position<\/strong>\u00a0to the left or right of the screen if you like.<\/p>\n

\"Change<\/p>\n

Change or Disable Animations<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

You can choose between two different animations when minimizing a window to the Dock. You can also choose to enable\/disable \u201cAnimate opening applications<\/strong>\u201d which makes the apps bounce when you could start them.<\/p>\n

\"Change<\/p>\n

Other Tidbits<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

In the same pane, you can choose to automatically\u00a0hide and show<\/strong>\u00a0the Dock. This option hides the Dock on the desktop and brings it back to life as soon as you hover over the Dock area.<\/p>\n

You can also choose to\u00a0enable\/disable indicator<\/strong>\u00a0for open applications. By default, a small black dot will be placed below the open app\u2019s icon, so that you can distinguish running apps from \u201cpinned\u201d apps.<\/p>\n

\"Other<\/p>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n

If you\u2019d like to enable a dark background for the Dock, head over\u00a0System preferences<\/strong>\u00a0>\u00a0General\u00a0<\/strong>and check the box where it says \u201cUse dark menu bar and Dock<\/strong>\u201c.<\/p>\n

\"Other<\/p>\n

Pro-tip:\u00a0<\/strong>You can quickly access Dock preferences by right clicking on the divider line in the Dock. You can also drag the divider line to change the Dock\u2019s size on the fly, without having to navigate to the Dock preferences every time.<\/p>\n

\"Other<\/p>\n

Customize macOS Dock Using cDock<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

cDock is a robust app that can dramatically change\u00a0the Dock\u2019s looks and behaviour. It\u2019s a\u00a0free download<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0for\u00a0\u00a0macOS\u00a010.9 and above, but if you\u2019re on macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later, you\u2019d have to disable \u201cSystem Integrity Protection<\/strong>\u201d (AKA rootless) before you install it. Disable SIP\u00a0on macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later. Once you\u2019ve disabled SIP, you can download and install cDock as you normally would.<\/p>\n

Set Custom Themes For the Dock<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

cDock comes with over 12 great-looking\u00a0themes<\/strong>\u00a0pre-installed. If none of them suits your style, you can even search the web for third-party cDock themes and apply them. Here\u2019s a quick look of some of the themes you can set for the Dock.<\/p>\n

\"Set<\/p>\n

Customize Dock Icons<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019re looking to change the icons of the apps in the Dock, there\u2019s an\u00a0easy way to do so in macOS, without using third-party apps. After you change the app icon, the change should be reflected in the Dock. If it isn\u2019t reflected immediately, you can always manually drag and drop the app to the Dock.<\/p>\n

cDock provides some additional options to customize the icons like\u00a0icon reflections, icon labels, icon shadows, color indicator lights<\/strong>, etc.<\/p>\n

\"Customize<\/p>\n

Customize Dock background<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019re not a fan of themes, you can manually configure the color of the Dock background or set a\u00a0custom background image<\/strong>\u00a0for the Dock.<\/p>\n

cDock also uncovers a\u00a0hidden animation in macOS<\/strong>, called as\u00a0\u201cSuck\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0So, now you can choose between three different animations when minimizing a window to the Dock. Here\u2019s how the \u201cSuck\u201d animation looks like in case you\u2019re wondering:<\/p>\n

\"Customize<\/p>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n

Other than these, there are a lot of other miscellaneous settings related to the Dock.<\/p>\n

Change Dock Behaviour<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

The\u00a0\u201cDock\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0tab in cDock reveals a lot of settings that can change the Dock\u2019s behavior. Some of the settings like auto hide, magnification and size can be changed from the \u201cSystem Preferences\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0while others are exclusive to cDock.<\/p>\n

To de-clutter your Dock, you can choose to show only\u00a0active apps, dim hidden apps or set the Dock to a single app mode<\/strong>. When single app mode is enabled, clicking on an\u00a0app will open it, while also hiding all the other open windows. For instance, here\u2019s how the Dock looks like when you choose to dim hidden apps (apps with translucent icons are hidden):<\/p>\n

\"Change<\/p>\n

You can also add a \u201cRecent Applications<\/strong>\u201d folder to the Dock for quick access to recent applications.<\/p>\n

\"Change<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re finally done customizing the Dock to your liking, there\u2019s an option to \u201cLock Dock contents<\/strong> \u201c, so that nobody can add or remove icons in the Dock (and upset the established order!).<\/p>\n

\"Change<\/p>\n

Of course, you will need to uncheck this setting if you decide to make more modifications to the Dock\u00a0sometime later.<\/p>\n

Some of the above-mentioned tricks can be accomplished with a Terminal command too. The reason why I chose to use cDock over it is because it provides an easy-to-use interface to enable\/disable these settings. This eliminates the need to fumble around and search the web for specific Terminal tricks.<\/p>\n

Other Third-party Apps to Customize Mac Dock<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

A few years ago, there was no shortage of customization apps for the Mac. But, most of the developers dropped support for them after the introduction of SIP in macOS El Capitan 10.11. There are a limited number of Dock customization apps compatible with macOS Sierra 10.12 with proper product support. I am listing down a couple of good ones below:<\/p>\n

HyperDock for Mac<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Unlike Windows, Mac doesn\u2019t show you the preview of a window in the Dock. If you\u2019d rather like it Windows-style, enter HyperDock. It adds\u00a0window previews<\/strong>\u00a0while you hover over a Dock icon, so Windows converts would definitely feel at home.<\/p>\n

\"HyperDock<\/p>\n

Download\u00a0(<\/a>$<\/a>9.95<\/a><\/strong><\/span>)<\/p>\n

uBar 3<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019re not a fan of macOS\u2019 Dock bar, you should consider a total replacement of the Dock. uBar is a fully featured Dock replacement with features like\u00a0window previews, app badges, app flashes<\/strong>\u00a0and a lot more.<\/p>\n

(Alternate description: It replaces the macOS Dock with Windows\u2019s taskbar).<\/p>\n

\"uBar<\/p>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n

Download ($20<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Customize the\u00a0Mac Dock Using These\u00a0Tips<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Using these tips and third party apps, you can customize the (otherwise pretty vanilla) Dock \u00a0in macOS and take it to the next level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Customize Mac Dock and Enhance Its Functionality – PC – The Dock is the placeholder at the base of your Mac’s screen that shows open applications and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51208,51206,5739],"tags":[42413,42403,42416,42414,42399,42397,42408,42406,42395,42400,42407,42419,42396,42398,42409,42410,42073,42417,42404,42405,42076,42411,42402,42412,42401,42415,42418],"class_list":["post-14116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple","category-mac","category-pc","tag-apple-mac-dock","tag-apple-mac-docking-station","tag-customizing-macbook-air","tag-customizing-your-mac","tag-dock","tag-dock-app","tag-dock-for-mac","tag-dock-for-macbook-air","tag-dock-for-windows-7","tag-dock-macbook","tag-dock-macbook-pro","tag-dock-replacement-mac","tag-docker-windows","tag-docking-software","tag-henge-dock","tag-imac-dock","tag-mac-dock","tag-mac-dock-multiple-monitors","tag-mac-docking-station","tag-mac-pro-dock","tag-mac-theme","tag-macbook-desktop-dock","tag-macbook-dock","tag-macbook-pro-doc","tag-macbook-pro-dock","tag-personalize-mac","tag-yosemite-dock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}