What Was the macOS Dashboard?
Introduced in OS X Tiger, the Dashboard was a dedicated overlay screen that housed tiny mini-applications called “Widgets” (like calculators, sticky notes, and weather forecasts). While revolutionary at the time, Apple largely abandoned the feature in later years before completely removing it in macOS Catalina.
However, if you are running an older version of macOS (like Mojave, High Sierra, or earlier), the Dashboard still exists and runs in the background. It consumes system memory (RAM) and can occasionally be triggered by accident when swiping on the trackpad. If you never use these widgets, you can completely disable the feature to reclaim system resources.
How to Permanently Disable Dashboard via Terminal
While you can turn it off in System Preferences, disabling it via the Terminal completely prevents the background process from running.
- Open the Terminal app on your Mac (you can find it by searching Spotlight or navigating to Applications > Utilities).
- Copy and paste the following command into the Terminal window:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES- Press Enter on your keyboard.
- The change has been written to your system preferences, but the graphical interface needs to be restarted for it to take effect. To restart the Dock (which controls the Dashboard), type the following command:
killall Dock- Press Enter. Your screen may flash briefly as the Dock restarts.
The Dashboard is now completely disabled. Swiping on your trackpad or pressing the Dashboard keyboard shortcut will no longer do anything, and the background processes associated with the widgets will stop consuming your RAM.
How to Re-enable Dashboard
If you ever want to bring the feature back, simply open the Terminal again and run the exact same command, but change YES to NO:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
killall Dock