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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 macOS Catalina (10.15), Big Sur (11.0), or Monterey (12.0)?

Brad Dwyer
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7 Answers7

92

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

Franck Dernoncourt
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user266730
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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
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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
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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
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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
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It is a decade-old problem that Apple won't fix. I reverse engineered the Dock behavior and created a tool that finally keeps the Dock staying on the selected screen. It is DockLock Lite, an app available in the Mac App Store. I made it safe, sandboxed, and free from system patches. It just makes the Dock work the way we all want. It feels very satisfying to not be afraid to hit the bottom of the external screen by mistake anymore. Official website: https://docklockpro.com

IGHOR
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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
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