The Screen Real Estate Vector
The macOS Dock is the primary navigational anchor for the operating system, housing your favourite applications and the Trash bin. However, on smaller 13-inch MacBooks, this Dock permanently consumes a significant horizontal or vertical slice of your display. If you are editing a video timeline, writing complex code, or reading a massive spreadsheet, those lost pixels are highly valuable. You do not need to permanently delete the Dock; you simply need to make it contextually aware.
How to Hide the Dock Automatically
You can instruct macOS to dynamically slide the Dock completely off the screen, only summoning it back when you explicitly need it.
1. Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Select System Settings from the dropdown menu (or System Preferences on older versions of macOS).
3. In the left-hand sidebar, click on Desktop & Dock.
4. Look closely at the top section of the main pane, specifically dedicated to the Dock’s behaviour.
5. Locate the toggle switch labelled Automatically hide and show the Dock.
6. Click the toggle to switch it to the On position.
The Dock will instantly slide downward (or to the side, depending on your configuration) and vanish, maximizing the screen real estate for your active application. To access your applications, simply shove your mouse cursor aggressively against the very edge of the screen where the Dock used to reside, and it will instantly slide back into view.