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How to Reset the Mac OS X Dock to Default Icon Set

May 12, 2015 - 9 Comments
Finder of Mac OS X

The first time you login to a new user account, boot a fresh Mac, or a clean Mac OS X install, you’ll be presented with a default Dock selection without any customizations, which includes a variety of apps depending on the Mac hardware and what software is installed. A common default Mac OS X Dock … Read More

How Change Stack View Styles in Dock for Mac OS X

Apr 5, 2015 - 9 Comments
Change the Dock Stack view style in OS X

Stacks offer a method of displaying folders or collections of multiple items in the Dock of the Mac. When clicked, the “Stack” will pop open and show the contents sprawling out of the Dock. Dock Stacks always display on the right-side of the Mac OS X Dock and they default to contain things like the … Read More

Instantly Add Item to the Mac Dock with a Keyboard Shortcut

Feb 28, 2015 - 9 Comments
Add to the Dock keyboard shortcut in OS X

Just about all Mac users know that you can add items to the Dock of Mac OS X by dragging and dropping things into it, but another option, which may even be faster for some users, is to use a keyboard shortcut. With a quick keystroke, you can instantly add any item from the file … Read More

Get a 3D Dock Again in OS X Yosemite (or a Transparent Dock too)

Oct 29, 2014 - 58 Comments
Transparent Dock in OS X Yosemite

The Dock is just one of a variety of aspects of the Mac OS X interface that was overhauled and flattened in Yosemite. Gone are the days of the 3D Dock, the new Yosemite Dock defaults to looking like a flatter version, much like the iOS Dock. If you long for the Dock with some … Read More

Change the Number of Apps in the iOS Dock to Get Minimal

Sep 1, 2014 - 7 Comments
Minimalist iPhone dock

The iOS Dock sits at the bottom of our iPhone, ipod touch, and iPad home screen, intended to hold the most commonly used apps for quicker launching. While it’s well known that you can customize the apps that are contained within the Dock, what’s lesser known is that you can actually reduce the number of … Read More

How to Change the Finder Dock Icon in Mac OS X

May 1, 2014 - 30 Comments
Change the Finder Dock icon in Mac O SX

The Finder smiling face Dock icon has been with Mac OS X since the very beginning, and the Finder face itself has been in Mac OS from it’s earliest origins as well. Some users may want to change the Dock Finder icon to something else for customization purposes, but the process is a bit more … Read More

Watch File Download Progress Easily in Mac OS X from Dock or Finder Windows

Mar 5, 2014 - 8 Comments
Watch file download progress in Mac OS X

Mac OS includes many smaller details that can make digital life much easier, but because they’re fairly minor features, they can often go overlooked by Mac users. An excellent example of such a feature are the transfer progress indicators that are native throughout Mac OS, these make it extremely easy to keep an eye on … Read More

How to Place the Dock in a Corner of the Screen in Mac OS X

Dec 5, 2013 - 7 Comments
The Dock of OS X

Want to have the Mac Dock in the corner of the screen? The Mac OS X Dock sits centered along the bottom of the screen on every Mac by default, and most users probably assume that moving the Dock to a new location is limited to centering on either the left or right side of … Read More

How to Make the Dock Appear on External Display on Mac

Nov 17, 2013 - 27 Comments
Show the Dock on an external display in Mac OS X

Newer versions of Mac OS brought significant improvements to multi-display support for Mac users who have their computer connected to an external screen or two. One of the more helpful feature changes with multi-display support is the ability to access the Dock on any of the connected screens to a Mac through the use of … Read More

Get a Transparent Dock in OS X Mavericks by Disabling the Frost Effect

Nov 15, 2013 - 29 Comments
Transparent Dock in OS X

The Dock received a visual overhaul in OS X Mavericks which defaults to removing a minor transparency effect. It’s a subtle change that many users won’t even notice, but the difference is that now the content of windows, images, and items moved below/behind the Dock are no longer visible through what looks like a frosty … Read More

How to Change the Dock Color & Appearance in iOS

Nov 3, 2013 - 8 Comments

The Dock received a significant visual overhaul along with almost everything else in modern iOS versions, and though the days of the OS X look-a-like are gone, you can still customize the coloration and transparency of the Dock a bit. One option is to change the wallpaper, which has a profound effect on the appearance … Read More

How to Move the Dock Position in Mac OS X

Oct 11, 2013 - 9 Comments
Change the Mac Dock location

The Dock sits at the bottom of the screen on every Mac by default, and it will stay there unless it has been relocated either with a settings adjustment or a key modifier. If you’d like to switch the location of where the Mac OS X Dock resides, you can easily do so with either … Read More

How to Change the Dock Indicator Lights Color in Mac OS X

May 21, 2013 - 8 Comments
Change the Dock Indicator Lights color in Mac OS X

The color indicators in the Mac OS X Dock provide an easy way to tell what apps are running just by glancing at the Dock. OS X basically provides you with two options for those indicators, which is to either show them or not, but because we like to customize things we’ll cover how to … Read More

Disable the Red Badge Alerts on Dock Icons in Mac OS X

Apr 29, 2013 - 1 Comment
Disable badge app icons in Mac OS X

The little red badges that appear on app icons stored in the Mac OS X Dock are intended to provide a quick alert and overview of some important notification pertaining to the respective app. Whether it’s the new unread email count, new iMessages, a Calendar event, unfinished Reminders, missed FaceTime calls, or any other number … Read More

Reduce Dock Clutter in OS X by Minimizing Windows Into Their App Icons

Apr 20, 2013 - 8 Comments
Minimized window thumbnails in the Dock of Mac OS X

If you minimize a lot of app windows while using a Mac you’ve probably noticed that the right side of the Dock in OS X quickly becomes cluttered with tons and tons of those minimized window thumbnails, and as they build up the size of the visible Dock slowly starts to shrink and adjust the … Read More

Add Folders to Dock on iPhone & iPad to Expand the App Capacity of the iOS Dock

Sep 3, 2012 - 5 Comments
Folder in Dock on iOS, shown on iPad

You can expand the app carrying capacity of iOS Dock by using Folders and placing those folders into the Dock on an iOS device. This is a great trick if you have more favorite apps than what fit in the iOS Dock by default (4 on iPhone, and 6 on iPad), so do yourself a … Read More

How to Remove Dock Icons in OS X Mountain Lion & Mavericks

Jul 28, 2012 - 8 Comments
Remove Dock Icon from OS X Mountain Lion

Removing app icons from the Dock has been the same since the very beginning of Mac OS X: grab an icon and drag it off the Dock into a poof of dust, whereby the icon is no longer displayed in the Dock. That behavior has changed slightly with OS X Mountain Lion and carried through … Read More

Send a Notification Badge to the Terminal Dock Icon When a Task is Finished

Jul 17, 2012 - 12 Comments
A notification badge alert is sent to the Terminal icon in the OS X Dock

Not long ago we showed you how to announce when a command line task was finished by using the ‘say’ command, but because it speaks aloud it may be inappropriate to use in a quiet environment. A much more subtle notification takes advantage of Terminal apps new usage of the BEL alert, which in OS … Read More

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