In the Dock on your Mac, do any of the following:. Open an app: Click the app icon. For example, to open the Finder, click the Finder icon in the Dock. Open a file in an app: Drag the file over an app’s icon. For example, to open a document you created in Pages, drag the document over the Pages icon in the Dock. Show an item in the Finder: Command-click the item’s icon.
Switch to the previous app and hide the current app: Option-click the current app’s icon. Switch to another app and hide all other apps: Option-Command-click the icon of the app you want to switch to. You can Control-click an item to display a shortcut menu of other actions to take, such as open or close an app, open a recent document, and more. If an app stops responding, you can Force Quit the app from the Dock (you may lose unsaved changes). Control-Option-click the app’s icon, then choose Force Quit. On your Mac, do any of the following:. Add an item to the Dock: Drag apps to the left side of (or above) the line that separates the recently used apps.
Drag files and folders to the right side of (or below) the other line that separates recently used apps. An for the item is placed in the Dock. Remove an item from the Dock: Drag the item out of the Dock until you see Remove. Only the alias is removed; the actual item remains on your Mac. If you accidentally remove an app icon from the Dock, it’s easy to put it back (the app is still on your Mac). To make its icon appear again in the Dock.
Control-click the app’s icon, then choose Options Keep in Dock. You can also rearrange items in the Dock—just drag an item to a new location.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu System Preferences, then click Dock. Change the options you want. For example, you can change how items appear in the Dock, adjust its size and position, or even hide it. To learn about the options, click the Help button in the pane. To quickly adjust the Dock’s size, place the pointer over the separator line until a double arrow appears, then drag the Dock to make it larger or smaller. Or Control-click the separator and choose an action from the shortcut menu. You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate to the Dock.
Press Control-F3 (Control-Fn-F3 on a portable Mac) to move to the Dock. Then use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys to move from icon to icon.
Press Return to open an item. A red badge on an icon in the Dock indicates you need to take one or more actions in an app or System Preferences. For example, a red badge on the Mail icon in the Dock indicates you have new emails to read. When you drag a folder to the Dock, you can view it as a folder. By default, the Dock comes with a stack.
Advertisement Your Mac’s Dock is quite customizable, but it’s not as powerful as some of the third-party dock apps available. If complete control over app launching is what you’re looking for, you’re sure to find these three Dock replacement apps highly useful. SuperTab SuperTab behaves more like an than a Dock replacement.
It doesn’t sit at the bottom of the screen like the Dock does, but shows up when you hit the shortcut Option + Tab. Having said that, SuperTab does function like the Dock in that it allows you to launch apps and other content. The app sets you up with multiple docks. Each dock (or “tab row,” as the app calls it) gives you a special set of items such as your recent applications, active apps, and recent documents. That’s not all; you can also throw in custom elements like website links, folders and subfolders, screenshots, and calendar items. It’s especially handy that you can create a tab row of items belonging to one or more Finder tags, which make it easy to. SuperTab also doubles up as a text expander thanks to its AutoTypes feature, which can also select menu items for you.
To top it all off, SuperTab lets you trigger dock items with hotkeys and even with your voice. You’ll be happy to know that support for the app goes all the way up to the latest macOS version, Mojave.
However, we must warn you that it will take a bit of effort not only to set up SuperTab, but also to keep it from getting cluttered and unusable. But the effort will be worth it. Download: ($20, 30-day trial version available) 2. If you want a Dock replacement that’s more “Dock-like” than SuperTab, ActiveDock is the perfect solution. Once you install it, you can choose to disable the default Dock from ActiveDock’s settings. These are accessible via the Start Menu (look for the rocket icon at the far left in the dock). Yes, there’s a Windows-like Start menu that gives you quick access to your Home folder contents and System Preferences. Gsi vb3 ii.
What does ActiveDock do that the default Dock doesn’t? For starters, it gives you window previews that make it easy to identify open apps while switching between them. But it doesn’t stop there. It allows you to resize windows to different preset sizes right from an app’s preview.
The Show/Hide Desktop dock icon is also a nice touch, and a pretty useful one too! ActiveDock allows you to group disparate items into a single view. This comes in handy when you want to, say, keep all the resources relevant to a particular project accessible from the dock. You can add apps, files, folders, and photos—any item works as long as it’s accessible via Finder. (If you want to group non-Finder resources, consider.) You can’t create such groups with the macOS Dock easily.
You’ll first have to move/copy individual Finder items out of their original location to a separate folder. Then you’ll have to drag that folder out to the Dock. That’s not convenient at all. The app gives you quite a few options to customize the look and feel of the dock as well as its contents. Notably, you can switch to a different theme for the dock and add custom icons for applications. You also get to select new icons for Start Menu, Trash, and Show Desktop from one of the available presets. On the whole, with ActiveDock you get a versatile launcher that’s easy to set up and use.
Download: ($20 standard license, trial version available) 3. TabLauncher TabLauncher sticks a Dock-like panel to the right edge of your Mac’s screen. (You can move the panel to any edge of the screen by dragging and dropping it into the right location.) The icons are not visible directly, but are hidden behind different tabs such as Tools, Net, and Main. These tabs or icon groups make it easier to keep the dock from getting cluttered. You’re free to create more tabs for better organization—unless you’re using the lite version of the app, in which case you’ll have to stick with three tabs only.
But you can rename the default tabs and customize their contents. TabLauncher comes with window previews for active apps. It also gives you fine control over the appearance and function of the tabs as well as their icons. You should have no trouble getting the hang of TabLauncher, especially after you move it to the bottom of the screen, where you’re used to seeing the Dock. The Special Tabs feature can prove quite useful. It lets you place specific folders, active windows, recently modified files, and so on within individual tabs.
With the Music tab, you can keep a mini music player and internet radio in the dock. You get to decide if you want the TabLauncher dock to show up all the time or only when you mouse over the edge of the screen. You can also choose to have it display all the time when you click on the edge. Or autohide it if you prefer.
Download: ($4, free lite version available) Is It Time to Get a Better Mac Dock? If you want to keep your setup simple, you might want to stick to the default macOS Dock. If you want to replace the Dock with an more flexible alternative, get one of the apps we have listed above. Also, how about trying a few?
After all, there’s no quicker way to Make your Mac more personal: change how applications, your desktop and the rest of OS X looks. Than sprucing up the Dock.
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