Is there a defaults write command to remove the dock in Lion.

I tried the steps mentioned but that does not seem to work on Lion. I can still see the dock. Are there hidden defaults that can make the dock invisible or off-screen on OS X Lion?

  • You mean remove, not autohide. Correct? – gentmatt Dec 28 '11 at 20:28
  • Correct, I meant remove – Prashant Dec 28 '11 at 20:33
  • I am going to edit out the second question - "how to remove all icons from the dock" and leave the answerable part "How can I make the dock not viewable on screen?" – bmike Mar 27 '12 at 14:55

Yes. You can make it so you don't see the dock by adding a very long delay to the animation so that in practice, you never leave the mouse on the "expose the dock" target long enough to see it.

This is technically a "workaround" since the dock is still there, just slower to appear than we care about on our timescale.

Two steps are needed to set this up.

One, activate auto-hide in System Preferences → Dock → Autohide or type ++D

Two, open the Terminal an type:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 100; killall Dock

You're set up now. In this example, it takes 100 seconds for the dock to appear. Make the timer even longer if you like, this long delay eventually helps you to forget that the dock is even there.

Reset to default behavior by typing:

defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier; killall Dock
  • I actually though this is the perfect solution for me, as I wanted to hide it such that I can only show it by using keyboard instead of mouse. But after this change on snow leopard, "Move focus to the dock" keyboard shortcut makes the dock open extremely slow :( – haridsv Oct 12 '12 at 6:14
  • 2
    Modifying this parameter doesnt prevent the Dock from appearing for 100 seconds, it causes it to take 100 seconds for the animation to complete. This means, even after a few seconds, the Dock starts to animate, which means all the tooltips, hot areas, etc start to apear, meaning you can still accidentally start an application. The parameter shown below (autohide-delay) works much better as it stops the animation starting at all. – Xcalibur Jun 12 '14 at 7:08

There's another hidden preference for the delay before the animation starts:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 9999999
killall Dock

Removing /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/ would also disable Mission Control, Launchpad, Dashboard, full screen windows, the Notification Center sidebar, and the application switcher.

  • This should be the accepted answer since this, for the most part, prevents the Dock from appearing. The currently accepted answer, as @Xcalibur pointed out, merely slows the Dock's appearance -- if the cursor is kept at the edge of the screen, application name tooltips will appear and the apps can eventually be clicked. – a paid nerd Jul 3 '14 at 15:59

There is an app called Docker, which has an option to "remove dock". I have never used this app so could not say how effective or permanant it is. It is freeware (donations accepted), hope this is of some use for you.



What I simply do is to reduce the Dock to a very small size, remove almost all the icons from it, and position it on the right side of the screen and turn Hiding on. That way it becomes practically invisible, yet it is still there if you need it for some reason.

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