How to Customize Your Mac's Dock

Make your Dock even easier to use!
2 minutes

When customizing your Mac's Appearance, a good place to start is by changing your Mac's Dock. Whether you are changing your Mac Dock for stylistic reasons, or so that you can see all the apps more clearly, it's a simple way to make using your Mac even easier!

Personally, I struggle with tiny apps, and prefer to have my Dock large. In this guide, I show you how to make your Dock work for you, by customizing your Dock in under just a couple of minutes time. Once you are done, learn how to customize your Menu Bar!

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Click the Apple Logo

To begin, click the Apple logo in the upper left-hand corner.

Open System Preferences

Open System Preferences from the drop down.

Click "Dock & Menu Bar"

Once System Preferences is open, select "Dock & Menu Bar."

Customize Size and Magnification

Now, you can customize your "Dock & Menu Bar" preferences!

First, consider changing the size of your Dock by sliding the toggle to the left or right. Consider, however, that your ability to adjust the size of your dock is based on a couple of factors, such as the amount of apps you have in your dock. If you need a bigger Dock that you can see better, consider removing non-essential apps from your Dock. If you are like me, you probably have too many apps on your Dock to allow it to get to the biggest size.

Second, consider turning on Magnification. This preference can be really helpful if you have trouble locating apps due to vision-related issues. To use Magnification, you will bring your cursor to the dock and scroll over the apps you want to magnify.

Change your Dock's Position on the Screen

Next, consider seeing what it's like to move your Mac's Dock around on the screen. Your Dock can be moved to the following positions on your Mac's screen:

  1. Left
  2. Bottom
  3. Right

By default, your Dock will be on the bottom of your Mac's screen. Try out the other options to see what you prefer!

Customize Actions, Animations, and More

Lastly, consider altering some of the other default Dock preferences. The other changes you can make are as follows:

  1. Double-click a window's title bar to zoom (chosen by default) or minimize
  2. Minimize windows into application icon (off by default)
  3. Animate opening applications (on by default)
  4. Automatically hide and show the Dock (off by default)
  5. Show indicators for open applications (on by default)
  6. Show recent applications in Dock (on by default)

Of course, changing these default settings are a matter of preference. Just make note of what you change, so if you don't like those changes, you can always change them back!

Now, go enjoy your newly customized Mac Dock!

Learn to change your Mac's background!
2 minutes

I love customizing my Mac, changing my Mac's wallpaper or background is a big part of that. I tend to change my Mac background with my mood, the seasons, and my ever-fluctuating interests.