How do you prevent the dock from switching monitors in macOS Catalina?

267

In Mavericks, Apple introduced a "feature" where if you hover at the bottom of any screen the dock pops up on that screen.

This is disrupting my workflow as I am constantly having the dock pop up when I don't want it to and then I have to go to another window and hover at the bottom for several seconds to get it to go away so I can click on what I was trying to in the first place.

I don't want the dock to move; I want it to stay on the bottom of my right-most monitor like it always has. How can I adjust this in OSX Catalina?

Brad Dwyer

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 2 855

5I know it's an old thread, but until today, I don't see the exact answer to do this. (Sorry, but I can't post as an answer yet.., low rep on SU) With this terminal command you can *stick* the dock position. $ defaults write com.apple.Dock position-immutable -bool yes then, just do a $ killall Dock to reset the dock and you're done. – gmo – 2015-05-19T14:53:14.397

@gmo - darn, this didn't work for me on Yosemite after re-enabling "Displays have separate spaces" :( still looking for a solution, any suggestions – Brad Dwyer – 2015-05-20T15:11:12.680

no? In my case it's still on the same position... since yesterday (well, now I'm thinking.. I didn't reboot since then).. Do you do something special when you notice and this hack stop working?... I'm also was looking for a definitive solution, it's a very annoying behaviour. Too bad It's not bulletproof. – gmo – 2015-05-20T16:20:10.597

2Nope, changing that setting via Terminal just doesn't seem to have any effect for me. Still jumps around when I move my cursor to the bottom of another screen unless I disable "Displays have separate spaces". – Brad Dwyer – 2015-05-21T17:57:45.023

The position-immutable hack from @gmo does not work for me, either: the Dock still jumps screens when dragging at the bottom. – ctrueden – 2015-09-23T17:12:09.250

This does not work: defaults write com.apple.dock position-immutable -bool true; the postion in this case refers to the left right bottom on the same screen. – David Dehghan – 2015-10-05T05:11:23.160

84 Years and it is still the most annoying thing ever... I am washing down anti-depressants with vodka because of this. How is this a feature! Does anyone use it? I mean has anyone actually said "I wish that dock thing would get in the way whenever I move near the bottom of the screen". – Recycled Steel – 2017-08-08T10:56:28.630

1Who comes up with crap like this? Mac is so stupid! I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!! – Max Binnewies – 2018-07-19T04:38:04.703

All of the answers seem to imply just two monitors. I have 3 and as of MacOS 10.15.3 this is the most annoying feature of MacOS. The Dock jumps all over the place for seemingly random reasons. I have to large external monitors over the built-in Retina screen (in center). Ideally I'd love to lock Dock at bottom of Retina screen. – Rich Sadowsky – 2020-02-13T18:35:55.707

I think this is also mentioned here: After a month of use, we dish out our biggest gripes with OS X Mavericks

– slhck – 2013-11-28T16:50:40.263

Answers

This is very easy.

Go to System Preferences > Mission Control, then deselect the option "Displays have separate Spaces"

user266730

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 943

9I want my Spaces to be separate, though! Apple needs to implement Dock-Screen affinity. – fatuhoku – 2014-08-10T20:13:55.340

2Good riddance to "new multi-monitor features" I never use. Thank you for this tip! – Mauvis Ledford – 2016-03-09T08:40:03.020

Note that life was good following these directions and the dock didn't get stuck on the other desktop anymore however I lost the ability to full screen Youtube (and I'm sure other content) on one screen while working on the other. The other screen will now black out, so I have had to reenable this sad feature. :( – Mauvis Ledford – 2016-03-15T23:11:34.573

5The worst thing about this is that there's a defaults write com.apple.Dock position-immutable -bool yes hidden setting that you might assume would work, but nope. – Bob Aman – 2017-01-05T19:22:55.187

This was annoying me for months. Now it's fixed, thanks to this answer. – Marius Stuparu – 2018-04-05T06:49:07.797

2doesn't work. Unchecked the option, but the dock still moves to other monitors when I hover at the bottom of a particular monitor's screen. – AjaxLeung – 2019-01-23T22:43:08.233

It is worth noting that you need to "Log Off" for this feature to take effect. However, it messes up the other functionality @MauvisLedford mentioned - going full screen on one monitor blanks out the other monitors :( What were they thinking? – saurabhj – 2019-07-09T10:57:31.027

1Wish I had enough rep to Downvote. This is a terrible answer. Lazy answer. Poster doesn't even have a username. This defeats everything there is to love about having separate spaces – hmedia1 – 2019-12-23T23:15:14.557

1Nice, that worked. Doesn't seem like they should be related but I'll gladly trade the Spaces flexibility to get rid of this annoyance. – Brad Dwyer – 2013-10-25T16:59:46.677

149Unfortunately this turns off all of the new multi-monitor features (multiple menu bars, single monitor full-screen mode, etc). Is there a way to only prevent the dock from jumping? – Brad Dwyer – 2013-10-25T18:08:06.417

An alternative, as suggested by MacLife, is to put the Dock on the right or left and then it won't move. But hopefully in a future iteration the Dock can be kept on the bottom and only on one monitor.

DavidK

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 469

This is best answer for people who don't care about the dock. I use QuickSilver, and thus have no need for the dock. But having it semi-randomly jump all over the place was extremely annoying. Now it's nice and hidden away on the left side of my monitor group, and won't be going anywhere. – coredumperror – 2014-12-12T00:06:42.903

2I hate my dock on the left/right side... but I guess this is what I have to do to fix this annoyance. Thanks! – skplunkerin – 2018-07-19T23:34:08.987

There is to my knowledge no good solution to this issue. For some reason the good folks at apple have conflated the top of screen menu with the dock, and if you get one on any screen, you also get the other. Without resorting to a third party app, there is no way to have menu bars in each screen but lock the dock to the bottom of a single screen. (I would be glad to be proven wrong here, but I've looked a bunch and not found a way)

Details:

If monitors are arranged 'stacked' then the dock will be at bottom of the bottom monitor. However, few of us arrange this way and those who do would most likely not be asking this question.

If monitors are side by side, you can move it ALL-THE-WAY to the left or right and it will stay there, but that is not as requested (or as many people desire) at the bottom of a single screen.

You can hide it, so it won't obscure stuff, but it will still move around whenever mouse is 'bottomed' on a screen for small period of time. This might be the 'best' solution, provided you like a hidden dock, as you can then easily access it on any screen, but it is not in the way or annoying you by being seen to 'jump around'. It is rather there when you want it, and hidden otherwise. (I strongly suspect anyone doing usability testing had things set this way and thought it was just great, and why would anyone want to see the dock all the time anyway... )

You can turn off the each monitor is own space stuff, but then you lose having the menu bar at the top of each screen. Obviously folks have different perspectives, but one thing I HATED about mac's multi-monitor support was having to move to an entirely different screen to access the top-screen menu for a program open on a different screen. This was something I really like about mavericks (multiple menu bars) but sadly it seems to come at the price of the annoying jumping dock

If don't want a hidden dock, and you want top menus bars on each screen, and dock fixed at the bottom, the best workaround appears to be to basically disable all the new mavericks stuff by disabling 'each screen is its own space' Then get a utility like "Second Bar" which while discontinued is still available, as a way to get a menu bar at the top of each screen. I used Second Bar a lot with mountain lion and found it to work well (although you need to have a second renamed copy of the app for each additional screen) I have not used it with Mavericks so cannot say how well it does or does not work.

Chuck van der Linden

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 401

Alternatively, you could go to -

System Preferences > Dock > Automatically Show and Hide Dock

While this is not the exact solution you were looking for, it does solve the problem of the dock sticking and getting in the way. I was annoyed by the same thing and eventually used this option as my resolution.

pyrospade

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 257

This is a decent solution for me. The nonintuitive behavior is gone, and I find that I really don't need to stare at the dock all day anyway. – Kevin Pauli – 2015-05-12T14:11:33.127

There is a workaround for the disappearing dock. If you set whatever is in your 2nd screen to full screen and then maximize it. It will leave your dock in place where you want it the whole time. Though I only find this beneficial when using a browser in the 2nd screen.

Guest

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 21

5This doesn't really work. The dock still moves freely. I tested with Google Chrome and VirtualBox maximized. – Acumenus – 2014-04-10T18:10:24.900

This is my way:

System Preference > Dock > Position on screen: Right if you want it to stay on the right-most monitor, choose Left if you want it to stay on the left.

The dock then shown vertically. It is even better, monitors have more horizontal real estate.

Name

Posted 2013-10-24T21:14:41.097

Reputation: 19

10Unfortunately this doesn't work well for folks with 3 or more monitors. – ylluminate – 2014-07-09T15:34:06.107

4This would've actually worked if the dock could be placed in-between the two monitors at the edge of either one. But it doesn't let you dock there. Instead it is docked on the far extreme left or right where I don't want it. – Acumenus – 2014-04-10T18:23:31.690