I use Quicksilver for almost everything and really hate that the dock always seems to be getting in my way. I was looking for a way to remove it, and found the following lines of code. There are some apps, like DockKiller, which can be a little buggy, but what I’ve found is that using the following commands will (for me) make the Dock small enough and move it into a place where it doesn’t pop up, and so this solution was the one that worked best for me.
To implement this solution, open a terminal and run the following commands:
// makes the dock icon size really really small
defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 1
// puts the dock on the bottom of the screen
// other values are left and right
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation -string bottom
// puts the dock on the left side
// other values are center and end
defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string start
// restarts the dock so the changes take effect
killall Dock
Here is a screenshot of the dock – this is actual size, a crop from the bottom left corner of my screen :)
If you’re looking for general dock preferences you can also check out the Deeper which exposes a lot of these options in a GUI manner:
How do I get to the Trash can now?
I’ve written a little applescript which helps me pull up the trash:
on run
tell application "Finder"
open trash
activate
end tell
end run
You can then save that with a trash icon and put it on your desktop, in your sidebar, etc:
You can also download my “Trash.app” script
Do you happen to know where the physical plist file location is?
Hi. I was able to accomplish this, but I wish I hadn’t because it makes it tough to get to the trash can to see what is in it. Do you happen to have the instructions as to how to set the dock back to it’s default behavior? thanks! — Randy
Hi Randy – I’ve updated the post with options of how to easily reset this as well as a workaround for the trash can.
Just on the Trash Can. Where do i write the apple script? Is in terminal? not sure what to do here.