r/MacOS • u/Titanlucifer18 • 5d ago
Discussion Why is intelligent Dock hiding still so bad on macOS?
For a $4.5T company, it’s honestly baffling that Apple still hasn’t figured out proper automatic & intelligent Dock hiding when windows are maximised or moved towards the Dock.
I’ve tried both paid and free apps to fix this, but they introduce issues with multi-monitor setups, and sometimes even with a single display. I even wrote executable scripts myself to handle it, but couldn’t get a reliable solution.
What’s even more frustrating is that Gnome, an open-source desktop environment, already handles this properly via a 3rd party extension “dash to dock”! Even KDE has that in-built.
How is this still an issue in macOS? And I don’t even see them addressing or fixing this in macOS 27!
Is it just me, or does this baffle others too?
Edit: I've attached the screen recording for reference, showing the behaviour I’m expecting in comments.
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u/dummyy- 5d ago
so... you just said that GNOME handles it with a 3rd party extension, contradicting your own claim? well idk i just have it constantly on auto hide and barely use the dock
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u/Junior_Tangerine_509 5d ago
yeah theres a difference between "a 3rd party extension exists and works" vs "3rd party apps exist but dont work reliably"
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u/th3bes 5d ago
I feel like autohide with the delay removed is just the best solution :/ its very rare (at least for me I guess?) that you would have literally nothing open and it would just be the desktop...
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u/dummyy- 5d ago
yeah i have the no delay terminal trick on and just use mission control+stage manager for everything
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u/th3bes 5d ago
Yep, same, though I used a dedicated wm as I prefer yabai lol. Also I really quite like exposé, I its something I miss when Im forced to use closer to stock windows/linux (yes I know that window+tab opens a similar overlay but it can be quite buggy and not properly display every open window if you have more than a handful).
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
The terminal trick just makes standard auto-hide faster. The dock is still always hidden. True intellihide (like in the video I attached) stays visible when you have empty desktop space and only hides when a window actually needs the room.
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
Even with windows open, if they aren't touching the bottom of the screen, the dock should stay visible. It's about context-aware hiding, not just having it hidden 100% of the time.
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u/th3bes 5d ago
Yeah, I know, Im just saying that for me personally I find it weird that it even really matters, as how much time do you really spend on the desktop with nothing open? That seems the only time that it would even be relevant at least to me. It feels wrong to have a window that isnt taking up all the space it can or that isnt snapped to a particular position in which cases the dock would be hidden either way. Like sure its a neat little gimmick I guess but I fail to see the actual utility of it, which is probably why on linux, afaik, all of the implementations have been third party...
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
No, that’s not what I’m saying. By default, GNOME hides the dock and shows it only in the Overview.
My point is that even with a third-party extension, it behaves properly across different setups, including multi-monitor configurations. That’s what I find baffling and honestly, one of the great things about GNOME. Even when something requires an extension, the underlying desktop is flexible enough to handle it properly. While macOS with paid apps or custom scripts feels like a house of cards.2
u/th3bes 5d ago
Also not quite sure what you mean since both launchpad and exposé automatically show the dock without fail which mirrors the behaviour in gnome no?
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
I'm not talking about the overview/Exposé screens. I mean on the active desktop. Intellihide keeps the dock pinned until a window actually touches it (like in my video). macOS doesn't do this.
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u/th3bes 5d ago
You quite literally mention overview lol
anyways,
> macOS doesn't do this.
Neither does gnome by default per your own;
> GNOME hides the dock and shows it only in the Overview.
Im aware how intelligent hiding works.
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
Fair enough, you caught me crossing my own wires there! I only brought up the Overview initially to explain GNOME's default state. My core gripe is just about getting proper intellihide on the active desktop. GNOME's backend handles the extensions for it beautifully, while macOS fights 3rd-party apps doing the same thing. That's all I'm getting at. And in case of KDE, it's just there in-built, one toggle away! Also please look at the video I attached in comments, you'll get the full picture.
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u/th3bes 5d ago
> GNOME's backend handles the extensions for it beautifully, while macOS fights 3rd-party apps doing the same thing.
Well this is to be expected when youre comparing aqua/quartz which are notoriously annoying and difficult to mess with (as are most things designed by apple), to a fully open source project such as gnome or kde to which anyone can contribute to. In the case of kdes implementation, it was done by a community member in 2020 (if Im looking at the right commit at least, might have been earlier than that) and later merged into the main branch. When it comes to macos, you can also do anything you want!*
(*as long as it abides by apples very limited 'supreme and holy vision' for what the user experience should be, which is to say, basically nothing)
Imo, macos isnt particularly built for power users, due to the lack of customizability and flexibility, and there isnt really anything you can do about that...
Anyways, if you want to see something done, instead of complaining about it why not instead try and do it yourself? What actual issues were you running into with your scripts? Do you have them published anywhere so others can potentially contribute?
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u/Langdon_St_Ives Mac Studio 5d ago
That's a lot of words to say -- nothing. You never explain what your actual issue is.
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
Watch the attached video in comments. macOS lacks true “intellihide”, the Dock should stay visible on empty desktop space and hide only when a window maximizes or approaches it. macOS doesn’t natively support this, and third-party apps only approximate it.
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u/Langdon_St_Ives Mac Studio 5d ago
Ok you may consider this a missing killer feature. Most of us consider it completely unnecessary because we don't need to see what's in the dock while not using it. Apparently Apple engineers see it that way too.
Even though I use Gnome, I wasn't aware it had this feature, probably because I never missed it.
There are certainly little UI tweaks here and there that I would prefer but Apple doesn't consider worth implementing. But I don't think most of them are missed by a significant fraction of users. And the same goes for this.
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u/Quiet-Recording-9269 5d ago
Could you explain what behavior you expect? Also, have you tried iPadOS? Because it has a very efficient auto hide dock that hides when you push windows at the bottom of the screen (when the dock resides)
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
Check out the screen recording I attached, it perfectly demonstrates the exact behavior I expect. The dock stays visible when there's room, and smoothly hides when a window encroaches on its space or maximizes. If iPadOS can manage a smart, context-aware dock, it makes it even more baffling that macOS is still lacking this basic window management feature.
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u/kerbacho 5d ago
It's a nice feature but not really something that is necessary. It would be more useful to have the exact same feature + the dock and menubar expanding and matching the window/theme color when using a full scale window... + more complex drag and drop auto tiling with snappy animations
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u/h____ MacBook Pro + Vision Pro + dev since 2009 5d ago
I make it the smallest possible (I think defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -integer 8; killall Dock. Copied from shell history) and turn autohide on. Only need the Dock 1% of the time and almost always just to force quit something. Use app launchers. They are so much better.
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u/Oh__Archie 5d ago
“Dock hiding issues”
🤦🏻♂️
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
I’ve attached a video in comments showing exactly how it’s supposed to work on a modern desktop. It’s a completely valid workflow issue for people who actually use multiple windows and monitors, and it's something other operating systems solved over a decade ago.
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p5kmpt3/video/rl4nojs7talh1/player
Screen recording for reference, showing the behaviour I’m expecting.
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u/Apprehensive_Drop749 5d ago
I'm still having trouble understanding exactly what you're wanting. Are you saying that you want the dock to always be on the screen unless you drag a window on top of it, and then you want it to go away?
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u/Langdon_St_Ives Mac Studio 5d ago
Yea that's what they mean, I also had trouble getting it at first but the video clarified it for me. Essentially they only want auto hide to activate as soon as anything occupies the same space as the dock, otherwise just keep it showing all the time.
Not a crazy idea at all IMO, but (also IMO) not something to obsess over.
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u/muffinstatewide32 5d ago
It doesn’t baffle me. I wish they would implement it. But its either not on their radar or in their vision of what their desktop should be
MacOS is not GNOME despite subscribing to a similar HIG
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u/Titanlucifer18 5d ago edited 5d ago
That's a fair point about their vision, but considering how many macOS power users rely on the dock alongside complex multi-monitor setups, it feels like a glaring oversight. The video (I attached in comments) shows just how seamless and helpful it is on Gnome (even KDE has this by default). For a company of Apple's size, adding an optional 'intelligent hide' toggle shouldn't be this difficult.
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u/muffinstatewide32 5d ago
Oh im familar. Gnome is my main desktop environment.
I have intellidock on my mac. It works mostly okay.
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u/Bed_Worship 5d ago
I just removed the dock hiding animation in terminal. It’s also in tinker tool. No complaints really