How Do I Customize Apps on the Mac Dock?

Customizing apps on your Mac's Dock is a straightforward process that allows you to personalize your workspace by adding, removing, rearranging, and managing specific options for each application. This helps streamline your workflow and keep your most-used apps readily accessible.

Understanding Dock Customization

The Mac Dock serves as a central hub for launching applications and switching between active windows. "Editing" or "customizing" apps on the Dock primarily involves managing their presence and behavior within this convenient bar. You can easily tailor it to your preferences through simple drag-and-drop actions or contextual menus.

Removing Apps from Your Dock

You have a couple of simple methods to remove an app icon from your Dock when you no longer want it there permanently.

Using the Options Menu: This method is ideal for explicitly managing an app's "Keep in Dock" setting.
- Step 1: Right-click (or hold Control and click) the app icon in your Dock that you wish to remove.
- Step 2: Move your cursor over the Options submenu in the contextual menu that appears.
- Step 3: Deselect the Keep in Dock option. The app icon will disappear from the Dock once the app is no longer running. If the app is currently running, its icon will remain until you quit it, after which it will not reappear.
Drag and Drop: A quick and intuitive way to remove an app.
- Click and hold the app icon on the Dock.
- Drag the icon away from the Dock into the desktop area.
- Release the mouse button when you see the word "Remove" appear above the icon. The icon will vanish in a puff of smoke animation.

Adding Apps to Your Dock

Placing your favorite or most-used applications onto the Dock makes them easy to launch.

Drag from Finder/Applications Folder:
- Open a new Finder window and navigate to your Applications folder.
- Locate the app you want to add.
- Click and drag the app icon directly onto the Dock. You can place it anywhere among your existing application icons, to the left of the separator line.
- Release the mouse button, and the app will now be a permanent fixture on your Dock.
Keep a Running App in the Dock:
- Launch the application you want to add to the Dock. Its icon will appear temporarily on the Dock, typically to the right of your permanent apps (before the separator).
- Right-click (or Control-click) the app icon.
- Move your cursor over Options in the contextual menu.
- Select Keep in Dock. The app's icon will now remain on your Dock even after you quit the application.

Rearranging Apps on the Dock

Organizing your apps on the Dock is as simple as dragging them into your preferred order.

Click and hold an app icon on the Dock.
Drag the icon horizontally along the Dock to its new desired position.
Release the mouse button. All other icons will shift to accommodate its new placement.

Managing App-Specific Options

Each app on your Dock has its own set of contextual options that you can access by right-clicking (or Control-clicking) its icon. These options allow for quick actions and preference adjustments.

Keep in Dock: As mentioned, this option determines if an app's icon remains on the Dock permanently.
Open at Login: If selected, the application will automatically launch every time you log in to your Mac. This is useful for essential utilities or productivity tools.
Show in Finder: Instantly opens the Finder window, showing you the application's location on your hard drive.
Hide: Hides all open windows of that specific application without quitting it.
Quit: Forces the application to close. If an app is unresponsive, you might see "Force Quit" here.

Advanced Dock Customization (Dock Appearance)

Beyond managing individual apps, you can also customize the overall appearance and behavior of the Dock itself through your Mac's System Settings (or System Preferences on older macOS versions).

Navigate to System Settings > Desktop & Dock.
Here, you can adjust various global settings:
- Size: Change the overall size of the Dock icons.
- Magnification: Enable and adjust the magnification effect that occurs when you hover your cursor over the Dock.
- Position on screen: Choose to place the Dock at the bottom, left, or right side of your screen.
- Minimize windows using: Select the animation effect when minimizing windows (e.g., Genie effect, Scale effect).
- Automatically hide and show the Dock: Make the Dock appear only when your cursor moves to its edge.

Quick Reference for Dock Actions

Action	How to Do It
Remove App	Right-click app > Options > Deselect `Keep in Dock` OR Drag app off Dock
Add App	Drag from `Applications` folder OR Right-click running app > Options > `Keep in Dock`
Rearrange App	Click and drag app icon horizontally
Set to Open at Login	Right-click app > Options > `Open at Login`
Hide/Quit App	Right-click app > `Hide` or `Quit`
Customize Dock Size	`System Settings` > `Desktop & Dock` > `Size` slider

For more detailed information on managing your Dock and customizing macOS, you can consult Apple's official support documentation: Apple Support: Use the Dock on Mac.