The Screen Real Estate Vector
The macOS Dock is an iconic strip of application shortcuts anchored to the bottom edge of your screen. While incredibly useful for rapidly launching software and managing open windows, it permanently consumes a solid chunk of horizontal pixels. If you are operating a MacBook Air with a smaller display, or attempting to use a highly detailed application like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, this persistent, brightly coloured bar is both distracting and highly inefficient regarding screen real estate.
How to Hide the Dock Automatically
You can configure the Dock to completely slide off the screen when not in use, maximising your usable workspace.
1. Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Select System Settings from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand sidebar, scroll down and click on Desktop & Dock.
4. In the main pane, look at the very top section labelled Dock.
5. Locate the toggle switch titled Automatically hide and show the Dock.
6. Click the toggle to switch it to the On position.
The Dock will immediately slide downwards, vanishing off the edge of the display. To access your applications, simply push your mouse cursor to the absolute bottom edge of your screen. The Dock will instantly slide back up, and will retreat again the moment you move your cursor away.