5 Dock tips most Mac users need Most Mac users still use the Dock at least some of the time, so here are a few tips that may help you get even more out of using it.
Getting quick access to recent items is something every Mac user desires as it immediately lets them get back to their previously unfinished work. You may want to continue reading the PDF file that someone sent you yesterday, or maybe you want to finish off the story that you left unfinished last night.
Unless you keep all of these files on your desktop, you really can’t access them with a few clicks. Even if you decide to store these files on the desktop, there’s a limited amount of space beyond which you can’t go.
If you’re troubled by these limitations, there’s a hidden feature in the Dock of your Mac that will help you out. This feature helps add frequently accessed items to the Dock for you to quickly access them.
Add The Recent Items Stack To The Dock
There are already a number of apps sitting in the Dock of your Mac. If you bring your cursor to the bottom of your screen, you’ll reveal the Dock with everything it has in it.
The Dock isn’t limited to what it shows by default. One of its hidden features is the ability to add your custom items to the list. This way you can add a custom stack to the Dock that shows recent items on your Mac.
Once the stack is added, it’s then just a matter of clicking on it to bring up your recent files. Here’s how you do it using the Terminal:
A new stack will be added to the Dock and you can click on it to open it.
By default, the stack will show the recently accessed applications on your Mac. You can keep it if you want, or you can customize it to show something else instead.
Replace Recent Apps With Other File Types
If recent apps isn’t what you’re looking for and you’d rather prefer quick access to your recent documents, for example, you can change the stack in the Dock to show those items accordingly.
Customizing the newly added stack is as easy as clicking on it and choosing an option. You don’t even need to run any commands this time to get the stack to show your chosen items in the list.
Find the newly added stack in the Dock, right-click on the stack, and choose any of the options shown at the top of the menu. These options include Recent Applications, Recent Documents, Recent Servers, Recent Volumes, and Recent Items.
Depending on what you choose, the stack will show your items accordingly.
You can play around with other options as well until it meets your needs.
Add Additional Custom Stacks To The Dock
If you need access to recent items that are of various types, one stack wouldn’t be sufficient for you. You’re going to need to add additional stacks each with its own file type to your Mac’s Dock.
The following is how you add it:
Fire up the Terminal app and run the following command in it.
When a new stack appears in the Dock, right-click on the stack and choose the file types you want it to show.
You can run the above command as many times as you want. It’ll add one stack each time. You can then customize what each of these stacks shows in the Dock of your Mac.
Add Custom Recent Items Stack To The Dock
If you’ve noticed, the default stack only lets you access certain recent file types. If you want more than that, there’s no option in the context menu to do it. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t add custom recent items to your Dock.
Mac has another useful feature called Smart Folders. These are actually saved searches that help you quickly find whatever files and file types you’re looking for on your Mac. Once you’ve created a Smart Folder, you can actually pin it to the Dock and access it from there.
This gives you more options and control as to what you can access from the Dock. Here’s how you do it:
Create a custom Smart Folder of your choice on your Mac. Maybe a folder that shows the recently opened PDF files on your Mac. Your screen should look something like the following.
Click on Save, enter a name for your Smart Folder, and save the folder on your desktop.
Once you see the folder on your desktop, drag and drop it onto the Dock. It’ll then sit there.
The Fan layout may not be suitable for PDF files. So right-click on the stack in the Dock and select Grid. It should look much better now.
Show More Recent Items In The Dock
By default, a stack will only show up to 10 recent items in a list. If you need more than that, you need to change a value on your Mac as shown below.
Stack Apps In Mac Dock Download
Click on the Apple logo at the top-left corner and select System Preferences.
Select General on the following screen. You’ll then find an option saying Recent Items. Use the dropdown menu next to the option to choose the number of items you want in the stack list.
You can show a maximum of 50 items in a stack pinned on the Dock.
Delete Recent Items Stack From The Dock
If you no longer need a recent items stack, you can have it removed by clicking on an option in the Dock.
Find the stack you want to remove, right-click on the stack, and select Remove from Dock.
The stack will no longer appear in your Dock.
(Redirected from Stacks (software))
Stacks in Grid View, as seen in Snow Leopard.
Stacks are a feature found in Apple's macOS, starting in Mac OS X Leopard. As the name implies, they 'stack' files into a small organized folder on the Dock. At the WWDC07 Keynote Presentation, Steve Jobs stated that in Leopard, the user will be given a default stack called Downloads, in which all downloaded content will be placed.
Mac Os Dock
In the initial release of Leopard, Stacks could be shown two ways, in a 'fan' or a 'grid'. With the release of the 10.5.2 update, a third 'list' view was added. This list view allows folder icons to display their contents in pop-out side menus. Originally, if the fan view was too long to fit within the screen, it was automatically displayed as a grid. The user could also choose to have a fan stack always display as a grid, but they could not choose to make it fan out (due to the reason above). After the update, the top item in the fan would allow the user to open the folder in the Finder.
The list view also shows an Options pop-out menu which, when opened, allows users to change the display method used by the Stack (fan, grid or list), the order items in the Stack are displayed (by name, date created, date modified, date added and kind), and the appearance of the Stack icon in the dock (folder or stack). These options are available in the other three methods by either right-clicking on the icon with the right button of a two-button mouse, or by holding down the Control key on the keyboard while simultaneously clicking with a one-button mouse. Holding down the primary mouse button will target the contextual menu as well.
With the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Stacks have been further enhanced. Stacks will allow viewing a subfolder without moving to a Finder window. Stacks have also been modified to include scroll-bars for folders with many files.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stacks_(Mac_OS)&oldid=875449088'