The Expanding Dock Problem
The macOS Dock is divided into two main sections, separated by a faint vertical line. The left side (or top side, if your Dock is vertical) contains the apps you have permanently pinned. The right side contains the Trash, your Downloads folder, and, by default, a dynamic list of up to three “Recently used applications.” As you open and close various programs throughout the day, this right-hand section constantly populates and reshuffles based on your activity. If you prefer a clean, static workspace where icons only exist if you explicitly put them there, this shifting row of recent apps is visual clutter that needlessly expands the size of your Dock.
How to Hide the Recent Apps Section
You can easily disable this dynamic behavior in the macOS System Settings, forcing the Dock to only display the apps you have deliberately pinned to it.
1. Click the Apple Logo in the extreme top-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Settings… (or System Preferences on older versions of macOS).
3. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Desktop & Dock.
4. In the main pane, look under the “Dock” section at the very top.
5. Locate the toggle switch labelled Show recent applications in Dock.
6. Click the toggle switch to turn it Off.
The change is instantaneous. The faint vertical divider and any recently used apps that were lingering on the right side of your Dock will immediately vanish. Your Dock will now remain entirely static, only expanding if you manually drag a new app icon into it.
How to Remove Specific Apps Manually
If you actually like having the recent apps section active, but a specific program is stuck there and won’t go away, you don’t need to disable the entire feature.
Simply find the unwanted app icon in the “recent” section of the Dock. Click and hold the icon, drag it upward toward the center of your desktop until you see the word Remove appear next to the cursor, and let go. The icon will disappear in a puff of digital smoke, making room for a different recently used application.