dockpin

English · 한국어 · Website

Keep the macOS Dock on one display.

With more than one display, macOS moves the Dock to whichever screen you push the cursor against the bottom of. Reach for a window near the bottom of your second monitor and the Dock jumps over. There is no setting to turn this off.

dockpin is a small menu bar app that stops it.

Features

• The Dock stays put. The Dock edges of your other displays stop pulling the Dock over. The pointer still moves freely.
• Pick a display, the Dock moves there. Right away, from the menu bar.
• Hold Option to move the Dock the usual way when you want to.
• Knows your layout. Edges shared with a neighbouring display stay open, so the pointer still crosses between stacked monitors. Bottom, left and right Docks.
• Brings the Dock home when macOS moves it by itself (displays waking from sleep) or the pinned display is plugged back in. Never on the lock screen.
• A fallback display for while the pinned one is unplugged.
• Works with auto-hide.
• One permission, no network. Accessibility only. No keyboard access, no data collected.

Install

brew install --cask esteban-eg-kim/tap/dockpin

Or download dockpin-x.y.z.zip from Releases, move dockpin.app to /Applications, and run once:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/dockpin.app

dockpin is signed but not notarized (no paid Apple Developer account), so without that line macOS refuses to open it. Homebrew does it for you.

Quick start

1. Open dockpin and allow it under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility (macOS 27: Device Control and Data Access).
2. Click the pin in the menu bar and choose the display under Keep the Dock on.
3. That's it. Push against the bottom of another display: the Dock stays.

The full guide covers every menu item, multi-display layouts, auto-hide and troubleshooting: Manual (한국어).

How it works

The Dock moves when it sees the pointer pressing against a display's Dock edge. dockpin drops the mouse moves that land in a 4-point strip along that edge on every display except the pinned one, and only on the outer part of the edge.

To move the Dock, dockpin does what you would: it runs the pointer into the pinned display's Dock edge for half a second, then puts it back.

Requirements

macOS	13 Ventura or later (tested on macOS 27)
Chips	Apple silicon and Intel (universal)
Permission	Accessibility

Build

Needs only the Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).

scripts/test.sh               # unit tests
ARCHS=arm64 scripts/bundle.sh # → build/dockpin.app
open build/dockpin.app

See Build from source for keeping the permission across rebuilds, and docs/media/make.sh for the pictures and video.

Related

DockAnchor solves the same problem with more features (profiles, moving the Dock back automatically). dockpin aims to be smaller: one menu, and it leaves edges shared between displays open.

License

MIT