Revolutionize Your Mac Workflow: Introducing the Ultimate Hack to Hide Your Dock Like a Pro!

Are you tired of your dock cluttering and compromising your workspace on your Mac? Do you struggle with limited screen space, especially if you’re using a smaller laptop?

You don’t have to worry anymore because we have found the ultimate hack to hide your dock like a pro! By hiding your dock, you can free up your workspace and achieve a much cleaner look on your screen.

Here is how you can revolutionize your Mac workflow and hide your dock like a pro using the following steps:

Step 1: Access System Preferences

Begin by accessing System Preferences on your Mac. You can do that by clicking the Apple icon located at the top left corner of your screen, and choosing the “System Preferences” option from the drop-down menu.

Step 2: Click on “Dock”

Once you have accessed the System Preferences, locate and click on “Dock”. Here, you will find various options related to your dock settings.

Step 3: Choose “Automatically hide and show the Dock”

The third step is to select the “Automatically hide and show the Dock” option. By doing this, you ensure that your dock stays hidden until you need it. This way, your dock stays out of the way, and you can access it easily when you need it by simply hovering your mouse to the bottom of the screen.

Step 4: Customize Your Dock Appearance

This step is not mandatory, but it can help make your dock even more effective when it is visible. You can customize the appearance of your dock by selecting from various options, such as changing its color, magnification or size. Attempt to customize your dock in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to you and still functions in the way you need it.

Conclusion

Hiding your dock on your Mac can make a significant difference in your workflow, allowing you to improve productivity by affording you more screen space while also giving you the freedom to access your dock when you need it conveniently.

By following these simple steps, you can hide your dock like a pro and give your workspace the clean and organized look that you desire. Give it a try today!

Last month I started using Linux for the first time, and one of my favorite features in many of the distros that I tried out is the intellihide feature. This is a feature that can be applied to the panel and various dock applications (ie. Docky, Cairo).

Unfortunately, this is a feature that is currently absent in Mac OS X, even though there is the similar autohide feature. For Mac users who are not familiar with intellihide, here’s a brief explanation of both.

Autohide vs Intellihide

I’m sure you’re familiar with the autohide feature for the Mac dock. This simply hides your dock out of the way until you move your mouse to the dock’s location. So if you have your dock on the bottom of the screen, whenever you move your mouse down to the bottom the dock will pop up and then disappear as soon as you move your mouse away again. This is slightly different from the intellihide feature found in Linux.

With intellihide, the panel or dock is hidden only if it overlaps any window in the active window group (currently focused windows).  This means that as long as a window does not overlap the dock, it will remain in sight. However, once a window covers it (ie. you maximize a window), then it will disappear. To bring the dock back you can still move your mouse to the dock’s location to bring it back up, or you can simply move the window away from the dock’s area.

As you can see, intellihide is move convenient and means less work for you. So now, here’s how you can get the Mac’s dock to intellihide instead of autohide.

Add Intellihide to Mac

There’s a useful little Mac application called DockIntellihide.app that will let you add the intellihide feature to the dock in a matter of minutes. You can download the latest version from Github. Once downloaded, drag the DockIntellihide file to your Applications folder.

As soon as you open the application, it will begin to work immediately. If you have a window over the dock area, the dock will be hidden. If not, the dock will remain in sight. In this manner, you can easily test it out to see how it works. There are no preferences or anything for this application; it just works.

Since it’s hard to show a feature like this in a screenshot, I’ve provided a quick screencast below of DockIntellihide.app in action.

It’s also important to know that you will need to have “enable access for assistive devices” checked off in system preferences in order for this app to work. If you don’t have it enabled, you’ll be prompted to do so once you open DockIntellihide.app. To do this, open System Preferences, click on Accessibility (under the System section) and then check the box next to “enable access for assistive devices.”

If you like the feature, you may also want to add it to your Login Items (System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items). Just click on the plus button to add the DockIntellihide.app.

Final Thoughts

This app is far from perfect and a bit on the buggy side. For instance, I notice that when I use my window manager (Cinch) to maximize a window, the dock doesn’t hide at all. Even manually resizing a window doesn’t seem to hide it. However, when I move a small window to the dock area it hides (although not immediately), and then I can quickly maximize the window. When I resize the window, the dock pops back up.

Regardless, it does get the job done and helps to keep the dock out of the way, giving more space for maximized windows.

Charnita has been a Freelance Writer & Professional Blogger since 2008. As an early adopter she loves trying out new apps and services. As a Windows, Mac, Linux and iOS user, she has a great love for bleeding edge technology. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.

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