Does anyone have any advice for making the most of the Dock? I find it pretty unhelpful coming from an older Windows / Linux background: I just want easy access to the windows that are open on my current workspace on my current monitor, and it seems ill-suited to that. I usually have it on auto-hide because it takes up space without providing much value.
I'm aware that I can do the three finger swipe to look at all of my windows, but that takes over my full screen and the previews constantly move location, so I can't build any muscle memory for it.
Really, I'm just looking for a classic, unobtrusive task switcher that lets me quickly navigate through what's on my screen without having to muddle through anything else (i.e. the Windows taskbar with all collapsing turned off)
Edit: I appreciate the suggestions about using Cmd+Tab or Raycast or Exposé or such, but I'm really just looking for a taskbar equivalent that doesn't require me to use a hotkey or switch "visual contexts". I want something that's persistent and shows the visible applications and their windows, and lets me click on them to raise them. A big part of this for me is being able to see what I have open at a glance, especially due to macOS's historically poor window management.
Edit edit: This is on me for using the words "task switcher" - that brings to mind Alt-Tab when I really meant to refer to the taskbar.
Install Alfred or Raycast and Command+Space your way to everything. Its 100x faster. I can launch any app in about 3 key strokes, which takes < 2 seconds and often less than a second with muscle memory.
For example cmd+space+c will launch or switch to chrome. cmd+space+py is pycharm, cmd+space+go is goland, cmd+space+fi is finder, cmd+space+me is messages, cmd+space+1 is 1Password. cmd+space+1p+space will start searching 1Password.
That launches apps. You can also just start doing math problems (calculator) by just cmd+space and start typing out a math equation. cmd+space+ai+space and just start asking a question to AI.
These only scratch the surface. But cmd+space, which is an easy modifier combo that you can do anytime, will basically unlock unlimited power. Once you get the muscle memory down you can literally launch any app in less than a second without even looking. If the app is already open, it just brings that app to foreground. Once you have that, you can use alt+tab to switch between apps that are already open. This is useful if you are just swapping between two or three apps for reference quickly. Furthermore alt+tilde (the squiggle key above tab and below escape on most latin keyboards) will switch between open windows of the same type. FOr example if you have 2 chrome windows open, it will switch only between those windows.
I also take this same approach on my phone. I'm on Android atm so I can use Nova Launcher for a completely blank home screen and then set a swipe gesture to bring up the search panel. On iPhone you can achieve similar by enabling removing everything from the home screen and using the app libary or search although it does look weird with the empty dock section at the bottom so I tended to just leave stuff like the browser in there.
I feel like I achieve the same app opening speed with built-in Spotlight e.g. `cmd+space me` opens Messages for me too, without any third party software
I find it superior to the dock. The applications on the task bar are persistent and only those active on the current desktop are shown. It handles multiple monitors too.
It has a few quirks I haven’t sorted out yet, but the overall experience is much closer to Windows 11.
Pro Tip: I use it conjunction with the dock by putting the dock on the side and shrinking the dock down to its smallest size and increasing the magnification effect.
Not trying to be snarky: why do you hate paying a regular fee for regularly updated software? Wouldn't the alternative be upgrade pricing, which is essentially just subscription pricing with extra steps?
Good news: there's a command under the Finder menu (to the left of File) "Empty Trash..."
Bad news: there's no obvious easy way to view the contents of the Trash before emptying it, without clicking on it in the dock. It's not under "Go", you can't add it to the sidebar either with Settings or by dragging it, and various instructions to navigate to "~/.Trash" don't work in Sequoia.
Good news: But you can add it to the sidebar by opening the Trash and using File > Add to Sidebar. And it shows up with its nice custom trash icon.
IIRC Finder has an option to delete files from the Trash 30 days after they're put there. I just enable that option and forget about the Trash completely.
I get that. I use it on a pair of 27” 1440p monitors. It really supports my preferred method of multitasking, which is really rapid-switched single-tasking.
It will get out of the way on smaller screens, though. As soon as a window gets close to the previews, they get out of the way, unlike the dock.
The dock just annoys me. I’ve been a Mac user for almost 15 years and it has never seemed useful for me. I cmd+tab or use Alfred to switch apps. To switch between windows of one application it’s cmd+`.
Note that you can also use cmd+tab and then while continuing to hold the chord use the pointer to select an application switch to.
The command-tab switcher has a lot of hidden functionality:
I always only use cmd-tab to open the switcher, then I use arrow keys to pick an application, up/down arrows to view an application’s windows (arrow keys and enter to select a specific one)
You can also hit Q to quit an application from the switcher and probably more things I’m currently forgetting.
Wait... What? That application-window trick is awesome. How have I been using been using Macs for twenty+ years and never found that? Discoverability = not-awesome.
As repetitive as these top-tips threads can be, we need one every now and again. Someone's guaranteed to learn something from them, and I'm grateful it was my turn today.
I have mixed feelings about discoverability. I'd usually rather functionality be available in a non-discoverable fashion than unavailable because designers couldn't figure out how to surface it in the UI. And, one of the things I like about vim and emacs is the interface can be extremely minimal with all the functionality I need behind key shortcuts and the like. (Although, emacs has a nice solution of `C-x C-b` list all the available shortcuts for the current window and `M-x` listing all the available commands.
The way I learned these shortcuts was reading macOS's help back in 2007, but the quality of documentation bundled with macOS has gone downhill quite a bit.
The main thing for me was the windows previews, I used to have hyperdock but stopped showing the windows previews. Right now I am trying DockDoor, so far is ok but you need to speed up the fade animation or it has some annoying behavior (reopens preview if pointer gets hover).
I basically use it to see which programs are open. Also when you get into macOS window hell, it can be helpful to see at a glance if anything on the dock isn't open (programs opened which are not in the dock will appear on the other side of the | )
I mean, it does work pretty similar to the windows task bar? If an application is open, it is listed there in the dock with a mark under it. You can pin applications to the dock or remove them via right clicking it. Right clicking on one will provide a list the windows which are open to which you can select from, as well as a "show all windows" option which will hide everything else, and visually show just the windows for that application (you can also just force-click on the app icon to do this).
The only difference I see is that the windows taskbar provides a preview thumbnail when hovering over the icons. In which case, there's apps you can get for that.
The big difference for me is that there is no way to quickly jump between multiple windows of the same application. I often have multiple different projects open in vscode and would love a way to switch between them without having to right-click and selecting one from the list. All I want is something like the windows taskbar with auto-grouping disabled.
I'm aware that I can do the three finger swipe to look at all of my windows, but that takes over my full screen and the previews constantly move location, so I can't build any muscle memory for it.
Really, I'm just looking for a classic, unobtrusive task switcher that lets me quickly navigate through what's on my screen without having to muddle through anything else (i.e. the Windows taskbar with all collapsing turned off)
Edit: I appreciate the suggestions about using Cmd+Tab or Raycast or Exposé or such, but I'm really just looking for a taskbar equivalent that doesn't require me to use a hotkey or switch "visual contexts". I want something that's persistent and shows the visible applications and their windows, and lets me click on them to raise them. A big part of this for me is being able to see what I have open at a glance, especially due to macOS's historically poor window management.
Edit edit: This is on me for using the words "task switcher" - that brings to mind Alt-Tab when I really meant to refer to the taskbar.