How to Completely Remove the macOS Dock

The Dock cannot be uninstalled. Dock.app is part of the sealed macOS system volume, and quitting it just makes launchd start it again. What you can do is make it effectively invisible: hide it, delay it, empty it, and open apps another way. Here is the whole sequence, and how to undo each part.

Can you actually delete the Dock from macOS?

No, and it is worth knowing why before you go looking for a Terminal command that promises otherwise. Dock.app lives at /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app, inside the read-only signed system volume that System Integrity Protection guards, so it cannot be moved, renamed or deleted on a normally configured Mac.

killall Dock does quit the process, but it reappears within a second: launchd treats the Dock as a service that must stay running. That is why the command is safe to run whenever you like, and why every command below ends with it. The same process also draws Mission Control, so disabling it hard enough to stick would break window management too.

Back up your current Dock first

Everything here is reversible, but restoring a snapshot beats remembering which of six settings you changed:

defaults export com.apple.dock ~/Desktop/dock-backup.plist

That writes your entire Dock configuration to a file on your Desktop. To put it back exactly as it was:

defaults import com.apple.dock ~/Desktop/dock-backup.plist; killall Dock

The screen flickers as the Dock quits and relaunches, and your old layout returns. Keep that file until you are happy with the new setup.

What do you need before you hide the Dock?

Set up a replacement first. This is the step people skip, and it is why most attempts at a dock-free desktop last about two days. Three sensible options, none of them wrong:

• Spotlight. Command and Space, type a few letters, press Return. Free, built in, and fast if you are a confident typist.
• The Applications folder as a stack. Drag it from the Finder sidebar to the right of the Dock divider and set it to display as a grid. Ironic given the goal, but it works if the rest of the Dock is empty.
• A menu bar launcher. The menu bar is already on screen, so a launcher living there costs no additional space. This is what ShortcutDock does: click the menu bar icon or press a global hotkey you choose, and a dark panel drops down with your apps in a grid.

Spend ten minutes with whichever you pick before continuing. If it is ShortcutDock, know the free version up front: eight app shortcuts, five favourites and one group, enough to test the workflow and not enough for a large library. Lifting those caps needs Pro, a single payment rather than a subscription.

Step 1: Turn on auto-hide

Three routes to the same switch:

• Press Option and Command and D. This toggles Dock hiding instantly from anywhere.
• Open System Settings, then Desktop and Dock, and turn on Automatically hide and show the Dock.
• Right-click the Dock divider, the thin separator between your pinned apps and the folder stacks, and choose Turn Hiding On.

The Dock slides off the bottom of the screen and comes back when you push the pointer against the bottom edge. That alone reclaims the strip, and it is reversible with the same keystroke.

Step 2: Stop the Dock popping up by accident

Default auto-hide has one real flaw: the Dock reappears the instant the pointer touches the bottom edge, which happens constantly when you reach for a button near the bottom of a window or overshoot a scroll. The fix is a reveal delay:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 2; killall Dock

The Dock now waits two seconds of the pointer sitting at the edge before appearing. The killall Dock half is not optional: the setting is written immediately, but the running Dock will not read it until it restarts. You should see the Dock blink out and back, and from then on a brush past the bottom edge does nothing.

Adjust the number to taste. Try 1 if two seconds feels sluggish, or 5 to push it further away. Something absurd like 1000 means the Dock never appears on hover at all, and you summon it with Option and Command and D instead. To go back to stock behavior: defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-delay; killall Dock

Step 3: Make it appear instantly when you do want it

Once you have added a delay, the slide-in animation is pure waiting. Remove it:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0; killall Dock

The Dock now snaps into place with no animation. If that feels jarring, 0.15 keeps a hint of motion without the half-second wait. The undo is defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier; killall Dock. Do these two as a pair: a long delay with an instant reveal means the Dock ignores accidents but responds the moment you genuinely ask.

Step 4: Empty the Dock of pinned apps

An invisible Dock full of icons is still something to scan when it appears. Clear it out. One at a time: right-click an icon and choose Options, then Remove from Dock. All at once, from Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array; killall Dock

That empties the pinned apps section. For folder stacks on the other side of the divider:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array; killall Dock

Two things to expect. Finder and Trash cannot be removed by any method. And a running app still shows an icon until you quit it, because that is the running apps section rather than the pinned section. To remove things selectively instead, our guide to removing apps and folders from the Dock covers the individual cases, and putting the Downloads folder back covers the one people undo most often.

To show nothing except what is actually open: defaults write com.apple.dock static-only -bool true; killall Dock

Step 5: Shrink it and turn off the noise

For the times the Dock does appear, make it small and quiet. defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -integer 16; killall Dock sets it to the smallest size the System Settings slider offers, a thin band rather than a wall of icons. Two more that cut interruptions:

• Stop icons bouncing for attention: defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool true; killall Dock
• Stop recent and suggested apps appearing: defaults write com.apple.dock show-recents -bool false; killall Dock, or the matching toggle in System Settings under Desktop and Dock.

Moving the Dock to the side is worth trying before you commit to hiding it, because on a widescreen display vertical space is the scarce resource: defaults write com.apple.dock orientation left; killall Dock, with left, right and bottom as the accepted values. The same choice lives in System Settings as Position on screen.

What if the Dock refuses to hide?

Four causes cover almost every case:

1. An app wants your attention. A bouncing icon or a modal alert holds the Dock open. Deal with the dialog and it hides again.
2. The pointer is still in the Dock strip. The Dock stays out while the pointer is over it. Move away and wait a beat.
3. The Dock is on another display. With more than one screen it moves to whichever display you hold the pointer against the bottom edge of. It has not failed to hide, it has moved.
4. The process is stuck. Run killall Dock. It restarts in about a second with your current settings.

A fifth case worth naming: if you edit ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist by hand in a text editor, your changes will usually be overwritten, because macOS caches preferences in memory and writes them back on its own schedule. Use the defaults command instead.

How do you put everything back?

One command reverses the entire guide:

defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock

This deletes the whole Dock preferences domain and macOS rebuilds it with factory defaults. The domain holds more than the Dock, though: your hot corners and several Mission Control preferences live there too, and they go with it. Our guide to resetting the Mac Dock to default covers exactly what gets wiped and how to reset only one part of it.

When this advice does not apply

Three situations. On a Mac managed by your employer, a configuration profile can enforce the Dock and quietly revert your changes at every login. If you rely on the Dock for minimised windows, hiding it makes them harder to reach and Mission Control becomes your recovery route. And if you work mostly in one full-screen app, the Dock is already out of your way and none of this buys you anything.

What you actually gain

An honest accounting: a strip of vertical space, and a row of notification badges out of your peripheral vision. You do not get better performance. The reason to do it is attention, not speed, and what makes it stick is a launcher you like more than the Dock.

For the argument rather than the instructions, we wrote about why we hide the Mac Dock and about what a Dock replacement should actually do. For a gentler version that stops at auto-hide, start with how to hide the Mac Dock. When you are ready to try the menu bar approach, download ShortcutDock and set it up before you touch a single Terminal command.