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I hide the dock and basically never use it.

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

> cmd+space+1 is 1Password

FYI shift+cmd+space is also 1Password's quick access shortcut

Just for the record, you can cmd+space, type the name (or just a prefix in most cases) of an app and enter and launch it with just Spotlight.

Fast enough for me.

It’s interesting hearing you say this. I come from Windows and thought it was just me.

I started using an app called Sidebar:

https://sidebarapp.net/

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.

This looks much closer to what I was looking for, thank you! Will try when I can :)

My God, only on a Mac you can find a _sidebar_ app that has a subscription. How I hate that.

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?

- +1 for Stage Manager - check out Witch (https://manytricks.com/witch/) - you could also use Keyboard Maestro and build your own interface

For me, the dock is a drop target for files. Got a PNG and want to open it in Photoshop? Drag it to photoshop on the dock, for example.

I autohide the dock when I get a new mac, and usually manage to forget it exists.

Command-Tab to switch apps, Command-Space to open apps.

Why would I want the Dock?

I suddenly realize the only thing I use the dock for is to right-click the trash to empty it.

How do you empty the trash? It's never even occurred to me... how do you get to the trash except via the dock?

I empty the trash with command-shift-backspace. I use the dock icon to open it, but I think there’s an entry in the Go menu

It's in the File menu of the Finder, towards the bottom.

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.

You clearly aren't regularly deleting tens of gigabytes of files at a time... ;)

You can generally permanently delete with one action - but be sure you want to!

GUI: select item(s) and Option-Command-Delete

Command-line: rm -rf folder-or-file-path (or srm to securely remove)

Replying to myself:

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.

I have all popup and sound notifications off and from time to time i check the unread message count badges on the dock icons :)

You can try dockdoor to get Windows-style hover previews.

https://github.com/ejbills/DockDoor/

You can try https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

See if that suits your needs

Have you tried Stage Manager mode? It kinda does what you want, but with the windows on the side rather than the bottom.

Way, way too obtrusive, and not dense enough. I like it in concept, but it's just not practical, especially on a laptop screen.

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.

You should use Exposé for that.

To swap between applications, use Cmd-Tab.

To swap between open windows of the current application you can use Cmd-Backtick.

So, the easiest way to swap between windows:

Cmd-Tab, up arrow, arrow keys to the window you want, enter

which is a lot of steps compared to just clicking the relevant window in a taskbar :(

I never use the taskbar on any system because it’s slower than shortcuts like this.

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.

> 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.

You also do things like (for example) start a drag, ⌘+tab to show running apps, then drop on an app icon without using the dock.

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.

There are also very good third-party replacements for cmd+tab. the one I use is called Contexts. Improves the experience massively

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 | )

John Siracusa has an app which is extra and opinionated Dock, although not directly for windows:

https://hypercritical.co/switchglass/

There's a detailed FAQ.

Contexts has both hotkeys and a visual side bar that may do what you are asking.

I wrote https://robata.app for getting an overview of my open windows a while back. Let me know of any changes you would suggest. Thanks.

That looks really nice, but it's not quite what I'm looking for - thanks anyway, though!

https://contexts.co/ is the best alt+tab switcher I've ever used and it also provides a taskbar like you want.

I'm a fan of learning the defaults and using them (verse having an environment that takes time to setup).

As others have said, CMD+Space is sufficient, just hide the dock.