Your desktop will now refresh and reload the Dock. Now, type in the following command exactly as shown below to revert the changes.ĭefaults write static-only -bool false killall Dockĭefaults delete static-only killall Dock.You can also use Spotlight search (Command+Space bar) to quickly launch Terminal. If you change your mind and want your Dock to work as an app launcher showing the inactive apps again, you can do that with yet another Terminal command. How to Revert Your Mac’s Dock Back to Default, Showing All Apps This neat trick has been around a while since Leopard, and continues to work in macOS Monterey, Big Sur, and modern macOS versions. Now the Mac Dock will only show what apps are actively running, and it’s more of a task bar than an app launcher.

That’s pretty much all you need to do to clean up your Dock the easy way. Finder shows up since it’s always running on your Mac, whereas Trash is necessary to drag and drop unwanted files. As you can see below, the Mac’s Dock now shows just the running apps.You’ll need to wait a couple of seconds for the desktop to refresh with the updated Dock.ĭefaults write static-only -bool true killall Dock Now, simply type in the following command as shown in the screenshot and hit “Return” on your keyboard.Click on it to launch Terminal on your Mac. Once the Finder window opens up, select “Applications” from the left pane and find the “Utilities” folder.If you haven’t used Terminal before, click on the Finder app on your Mac from the Dock. First, you’ll need to find and launch the Terminal app.The following steps can be used regardless of what macOS version your system is running. We’ll be making use of a handy Terminal command to set your Mac to show just the actively open and running apps. How to Make Mac Dock Only Show Running Apps If you’d prefer, you can set the Dock to display just the active apps and remove all the rest, by using a defaults write command. If you have a lot of apps stored on your Dock, you may sometimes have trouble figuring out which apps are currently open and running on the system, even with the little app running indicator at the bottom.

Apart from the stock apps, the Dock also shows the apps you’ve manually added, the apps you’ve launched, and lastly, the Downloads folder, and the Trash where you move all your unwanted files.

Mac style taskbar for windows 10