Too Many Apps in Your Mac Dock? How to Clean It Up

Your Dock has grown into a long row of tiny icons, finding the right one takes longer than it should, and removing anything feels risky. The fix is two steps: take the rarely used apps out of the Dock, then give them a second, organized home so you can still open them in one click.

Short answer: the best app for moving the overflow out of your Dock, in my opinion as its developer, is Jetty: it adds up to four extra docks to the edges of your screen (or floating anywhere), each with tabs of one-click tiles for apps, files, folders, websites and Shortcuts. It is a $9.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store and needs macOS 14 or later.

Disclosure: I build Jetty.

Why the Mac Dock gets cluttered

The Dock is one flat list. Every app sits at the same level, whether you use it ten times a day or once a month. There are no categories and no grouping, so a design tool ends up next to a calculator next to a game you played once.

Each new app you install tends to stay in the Dock, so the row keeps growing. At some point the icons get small, and you start squinting to tell one chat app from another.

A tab layout by workflow is shown in reduce Mac Dock clutter with workflow-based tabs.

Step 1: remove what you do not use daily

You can take an app out of the Dock without uninstalling it. Control-click the icon, choose Options, then Remove from Dock. The app stays in your Applications folder and you can open it any time. We cover this in more detail in how to remove apps from the Dock.

A simple rule helps: if you have not opened an app this week, it does not need a permanent spot in the Dock.

The worry is usually "but I will need it later". That is a fair worry, because the alternatives (Spotlight, or opening the Applications folder) are slower for apps you reach for regularly. This is why the second step matters.

If the order keeps shifting after you clean up, why the Mac Dock keeps rearranging explains the running-apps section.

Step 2: give those apps a grouped home

Jetty does not change or replace the macOS Dock. It adds its own bars next to it. A bar is pinned to the top, bottom, left or right edge of your main screen, or you can unlock it and drag it anywhere. Each bar can have several tabs, for example "Design", "Comms" and "Dev", and each tab holds the tiles you chose.

You add tiles by dragging apps, files or folders from Finder onto a bar, or with the Add Tile button. Click a tile to open it.

With that setup:

• Your Dock can shrink to the handful of apps you use constantly.
• The apps you removed stay one click away, grouped by purpose instead of alphabet.
• New apps go into the right tab, so the Dock does not slowly fill up again.

Group by purpose, not by alphabet

Put Figma, Sketch and Preview on a "Design" tab. Put Slack, Zoom and Mail on a "Comms" tab. The grouping follows how you think about your work, not how macOS sorts things.

What Jetty does not do

Jetty does not show which apps are running, and it does not replace the Dock's own features such as running indicators. Its bars appear on your main screen. If you want to hide or resize the Dock itself, use System Settings > Desktop & Dock.

A quick cleanup routine

1. List the apps you opened in the last week.
2. Remove everything else from the Dock with Control-click > Options > Remove from Dock.
3. Create one bar with one tab per area of your work and drag the removed apps into them.
4. Revisit in a month and delete tiles you never click.

For a wider look at your options, see the comparison of Dock apps.

How we checked

Jetty's details on this page were checked against the app's source code and its App Store listing on 2026-10-10 and are collected on the facts page; I build Jetty. For built-in macOS steps, Apple's Mac User Guide is the reference for your version of macOS.

FAQ

Is it safe to remove apps from the Mac Dock?

Yes. Removing an icon removes just the shortcut. The app itself stays in your Applications folder and still opens from Spotlight or Finder.

How many apps should be in my Mac Dock?

There is no official number, but many people keep it to the few apps they open every day. Anything beyond that is easier to find when it is grouped somewhere else.

Does Jetty replace the Dock?

No. Jetty adds its own bars to your screen edges and leaves the macOS Dock as it is. You still manage the Dock in System Settings.

Can I keep using Spotlight for rarely used apps?

Yes. Spotlight works well for apps you open once in a while. Put the ones you open daily on a bar so you do not have to type.

Get Jetty on the Mac App Store. $9.99 one-time purchase, macOS 14 or later.