DockFix 5.0

DockFix is a Dock replacement for macOS that swaps the Dock Apple ships with one you can control completely. It is built for Mac users who want their Dock to reflect their own taste and workflow rather than a fixed set of Apple defaults. With DockFix you can change colours, opacity, size, position, animations and icons, and you also gain features the system Dock does not offer, including widgets, window previews, folders, website shortcuts, presets and a file shelf. The dock keeps the same magnification, true liquid glass and overall feel as the system one, so the result reads as part of macOS rather than an add-on. DockFix runs on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. The Dock that comes with a Mac is fast and reliable, but Apple closed it off. Users cannot personalise its colour, its icons, its animations, or much of what sits inside it. That limitation is the entire reason DockFix exists: as the founder puts it, the Dock that comes with your Mac is not yours. DockFix hands that control back, replacing the system Dock with one that does far more and lets you customise all of it. The trade-off most people expect from a replacement is that it will feel foreign or heavy. DockFix is built explicitly to avoid that: a dock you have made your own is only worth having if it still feels like part of macOS, right down to the weight of the magnification and the way a window folds toward the corner it came from. Complete customisation is the core of DockFix. Colours, opacity, size, position, animations and icons are all configured to your liking, so the dock can be tuned down to the detail rather than adjusted within the narrow limits of the system Dock. If you would rather not configure everything by hand, community presets let you instantly apply a theme with one click. Because those presets are shared, you can adopt a look someone else has already refined and then tweak it further. The dock keeps the same magnification and true liquid glass appearance as Apple's, so even a heavily customised dock still animates and behaves like the one that shipped with the Mac. Custom app icons let you apply your own artwork to any app on the system, including the native apps macOS will not otherwise let you touch. That means the dock can match a chosen theme or wallpaper instead of mixing stock icons with your own artwork. Folders and website shortcuts extend the dock beyond application launching, so groups of apps and frequently visited websites can sit alongside them. The file shelf provides somewhere to keep files you are working with, directly in the dock, rather than scattering them across the desktop or hunting through Finder. Together these additions turn the dock from a simple launcher into a small working surface that travels with you across every space on the Mac. Widgets bring useful information and quick controls into the dock itself, including media playback, the clock and shortcuts. Rather than opening an app or a separate panel, you can glance at or control these directly from the dock wherever you are. Window previews are described by the developer as the most requested feature: hovering an app shows its open windows, live, and you can jump straight to the one you want. This removes the guesswork of clicking through several windows belonging to the same application. Both features are additions Apple never made to the Dock, and both are integrated into the dock itself rather than bolted on. DockFix 5.0 was rebuilt from the ground up: a new engine, a new interface, and, according to the founder, not one line of the old code left in place. Nothing else shipped while the rewrite was happening, because, in the founder's words, a rewrite is not something you can do halfway. The goal of that work was a dock that looks and animates exactly like the system one straight out of the box, with the same magnification, true liquid glass, and the same feel throughout. The founder describes the finer points that had to be got right: the magnification has to carry the right weight, a window has to fold toward the corner it came from, and an icon has to appear the instant the app does. DockFix requires no special permissions and never asks you to disable System Integrity Protection. It hides the system Dock while it runs and restores it when you quit, so nothing is changed permanently. The practical benefit is a Dock that behaves exactly like the one macOS ships while doing considerably more. Performance is a stated priority: the new version uses under 1% CPU on average, so the customisation and the extra features do not come at the cost of a slower Mac. Because the system Dock is hidden rather than modified, quitting DockFix returns the Mac to its original state, which makes trying it low risk. Matching Apple's ordering and animation means there is no relearning period: the dock still feels native, just customised. And DockFix collects no data about you: there is no tracking and no usage collection of any kind. The developer states that it stores your email address to manage your licence and answer support, and nothing else. In day-to-day use, DockFix fits several concrete workflows. You can pick or build a theme, apply a community preset with one click, and have a dock that matches your desktop without hand-configuring every colour and animation. If you keep many windows of the same app open, such as a browser or an editor, you can hover the app icon and jump straight to the right window from the live preview. Media playback, the clock and shortcuts can be kept in the dock as widgets for quick control without leaving the current app. Files in progress can sit on the file shelf instead of cluttering the desktop, and folders plus website shortcuts keep frequently used apps and sites grouped in one place. Existing owners simply update as well: the new version is the one you get today, by downloading it or opening the copy you already have and choosing Check for Updates. DockFix is aimed at Mac users who want their Dock to be personal and more capable: people who already customise their desktop, wallpaper and icons, and who find the standard Dock too limited. It runs on macOS 14 or later, on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. Pricing is a single payment of €14.99, paid once, with no subscription. A seven-day free trial unlocks every feature with no card required, and your settings carry straight over if you buy a licence during or after the trial. Enrolled students receive a 30% discount. If you already own DockFix, the new version is free: your licence carries over automatically, with nothing to move or reactivate, and a lost licence key can be recovered by pressing Recover inside the app. Questions are handled through the DockFix support page and a Discord community where, according to the site, most questions are answered within a day. DockFix also publishes a roadmap and a discover page for community docks, so users can see what is planned for the app and what other people have built with it. Taken together, DockFix 5.0 is a fully customisable Dock for macOS that keeps everything people like about Apple's Dock, the same magnification, liquid glass and native feel, while adding the colours, icons, animations, widgets, window previews, folders, presets and file shelf that Apple never provided. It costs €14.99 once, runs at under 1% CPU on average, and can be tried free for seven days.