How to Replace iTunes Dock Icon with Album Art

Nov 21, 2011 - 27 Comments

iTunes Album Art Dock Icon

For the music lovers out there, DockArt takes the “Now Playing” notification concept a step further and actually replaces the iTunes Dock icon on the Mac with the currently playing albums cover art.

How to Replace the iTunes Dock Icon with Currently Playing Album Art on Mac

This is how you get DockArt working:

  • Download DockArt for free from the developers page
  • Quit iTunes
  • From the Mac OS X Desktop, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the “Go To Folder” window and enter the following directory path:
  • ~/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-Ins/

  • Drag the ‘DockArt.bundle’ file into that folder
  • Relaunch iTunes and start playing a song

You can further customize DockArt by going to “View > Visualizer > Options”, where you’ll see options to adjust the icon size, show the iTunes badge, progress bar, etc.

To get the most out of this plugin, use the iTunes “Get Album Art” feature to fill in any blank covers in your music collection.

If an album or song doesn’t have cover art associated with it, the default iTunes icon gets displayed instead.

DockArt is a free iTunes plugin that is compatible with iTunes 10.4 or later, but has been confirmed to work in iTunes 10.5.1. Let us know in the comments if you find it works with other versions of iTunes as well.

This plugin generally looks best with larger Docks or with magnification enabled or using the magnify dock icon keyboard shortcut trick to see the most detail. You can even use the super-size Dock if you want jumbo album art.

Thanks to Andrey for the tip from the comments!

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Related articles:

Posted by: William Pearson in iTunes, Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

27 Comments

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  1. Wolfgang says:

    to bad that it doesn’t work under macOs Sierra an iTunes 12.7

  2. Andrea says:

    unfortunately, latest iTunes (12.6) broke DockArt

  3. Bedza says:

    great! works with 10.9.2

  4. RHA says:

    Don’t work with iTunes 64 bit!!!!

  5. Pete says:

    Perfect! That kills man! Thank you so much!

  6. […] iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch the next time such a device is connected, and will also appear as the Dock icon if you replaced it with DockArt. […]

  7. hodah says:

    I also have a red circle with the number ‘174’. What is it, and how do I get rid of it?
    thanks…

  8. Eric says:

    It’s just too bad that iTunes “Get Album Artwork” doesn’t seem to be able to find most imported CD artwork anymore?!?! If it can’t find the artwork there is nothing to display in the dock. Any suggestions for a good (free) app for that?

  9. Great app.
    I prefer to use the “modern overlay”, but it’s a bit rough. So, I made this, a way better than the original. http://cl.ly/C71P

  10. Andreas says:

    Someone should create something similar for Spotify!

  11. Rjuka says:

    So how come i have a red circle with a 5 in it after adding the bundle to my plugins folder. is anybody got this. I’m not liking it much personally. I thought it was track number.. but its not

    • Rjuka says:

      never mind sorry, jumped the gun. I figured it out, handy little options menu! great tweak for music lovers. Keep up the awesome mac tips please. so far I’ve restored colored finder icons, i have bin icons for my stacks on the dock. and now I have album artwork with the original iTunes logo as a badge next to it. kinda looks like growl. thank you

  12. Johnny M says:

    that’s cool…Works flawlessly…

  13. I got really excited, but then scared that I couldn’t remove the badge for unplayed podcasts. But I see the options no, so we’re good to go. The only thing that would be nice, is if the “skew” function had a slider — maybe something between 0° and 45°. It might be nice to play with how tilted the album cover is and not break the flow of one’s dock icons (important to me, at least).

  14. adam says:

    Nice Thanks :)

  15. […] some excitement to your dock, or perhaps are irrationally angered by the round blue iTunes icon, OS X Daily shares a neat tip on how to replace your iTunes icon with art for whichever album you’re […]

  16. designdisorder says:

    Is it just me or does DockArt eat ESC key events on other Macs as well? Removing the plug-in restores the original behavior. Too bad …

    • Greg Weston says:

      It’s just you. DockArt doesn’t interact with the user at all unless its settings window is open.

  17. Synen says:

    Thanks!

  18. Andrey says:

    Cheers!

  19. Snog says:

    DockArt has been around a while, glad they updated it for Lion. BTW, 45 updates?? I think you need to update your iOS apps!!

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