A dock that shows you the window before you commit to it.
Better Dock replaces the built-in macOS Dock with one that runs independently on every monitor, previews a real live thumbnail of a window when you hover over its icon, and keeps maximized windows from sliding behind it. Currently in free public beta — no account required, no payment, nothing gated.
What it actually does
Actually built for multiple monitors
- A separate dock on every screen, each with its own edge, its own auto-hide setting, and its own background
- Change one monitor’s dock without touching any of the others
See the window, not a guess
- Hover an app’s icon and get a real, live thumbnail of its actual window — not a static icon, an actual screen capture
- Click to bring it forward, or move on without touching anything
Find things without leaving the dock
- An app search field that filters your installed apps at Spotlight speed as you type
- Full keyboard control — arrow keys move the selection, Enter launches it, no mouse required
- A separate Google search field for anything that isn’t an app
Windows that stop where they should
- A maximize clamp: double-clicking a window’s title bar zooms it right up to the dock’s edge and stops, instead of sliding behind it
- Includes a dedicated fix for Finder, whose own double-click-zoom behaves incorrectly on multi-monitor Macs even without Better Dock installed
The utility tiles you’d expect
- Trash, Show Desktop, and Mission Control tiles, right in the dock
- Drag to reorder any icon, just like the dock you’re used to
Looks the way you want it to
- Toggle the dock’s background on or off, set its color and opacity, choose full-width or icon-hugging sizing, and adjust icon size
- Launch at login, so it’s already running when you sit down
Account & feedback
You can sign in with an email and password, or skip the password entirely with a one-time code sent to your email. It’s optional — no feature in Better Dock is locked behind an account, today or planned. There’s also a built-in feedback form, so reporting a bug or requesting something doesn’t mean leaving the app to find an email address.
Why isn’t this on the Mac App Store?
Replacing the Dock properly means reading the position and size of other apps’ windows, reacting to them in real time, and capturing live window thumbnails for the hover preview. That requires Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions — real system-level access, granted by you in System Settings.
Apps distributed through the Mac App Store run inside a sandbox that’s specifically designed to prevent exactly this kind of access to other apps’ windows. That’s a deliberate, sensible restriction for most software — it just also rules out a dock replacement. So Better Dock is a direct download instead, and asks for those permissions itself, the same way apps like BetterTouchTool or Rectangle do.
Try Better Dock on your Mac
Free during the public beta. No payment, no license key, no trial countdown. A download link will be added here as soon as the app is ready to distribute. Want to know the moment it’s ready? Leave your email below and we’ll let you know.