If you’re not happy with the built-in options, opt for a third-party dock app to enhance the Mac experience. Using the tricks above, you can easily change the default look and feel of the macOS Dock on Mac. Clean!ĪctiveDock offers a trial version for $ 25 to unlock all features.ĭownload ActiveDock for Mac Enhance the docking experience on Mac You can choose to show new Start Menu, Trash, and Desktop icons from one of the available preferences. To customize it, you can switch to a different theme for the Dock and add custom icons for applications. You can add apps, files, folders, and photos – any item will work as long as it’s accessible through the Finder. This is useful when you want to keep all resources relevant to a project accessible from the dock. It allows you to change the window size to various preset sizes right from an app’s preview.ĪctiveDock allows you to group different items in a single view. My favorite function is the window preview to quickly identify open apps when switching. At the same time, ActiveDock sees and behaves just like Apple Dock. You can also customize the appearance of the icons and the dock yourself as required. ActiveDock allows you to group documents and apps, switch between apps and windows faster, and manage windows directly from the window preview window. ActiveDockĪctiveDock is a complete replacement for Apple Launchpad and Dock with many new features. Instead, these third-party apps hide the default macOS dock so well that you won’t even notice the old dock during simple navigation. Removing the dock won’t work well with some features. That’s because the Dock is tied to some native functionality in macOS. You can only hide and rearrange the dock. Windows, for example, gives you an overview of the PC via the start menu.Ī third-party dock replacement does not completely remove the standard dock from the operating system. On the other hand, Windows and Linux made the startup systems pretty great. Well, Apple doesn’t offer that right now.Īpple hasn’t made any major changes to the Dock in the past decade. Sometimes you need a dock that blends in with your other UI and other things.

Why do you need a third-party dock replacement?Īs you can see, you can make a few changes to the look of the dock, but it’s not enough. Step 2: Click the check box next to Show recently used apps in Dock to remove the check mark (it’s on by default). Step 1: Navigate to the Dock menu in the System Preferences menu.

How to use activedock