How to add spacers to your Mac Dock

Add Spacer

Small

Regular

A spacer is an empty slot between pinned apps. It gives you a visual break without adding another application. One gap between communication apps and work tools is often enough to make a busy Dock easier to scan.

Add a spacer with Dockset

1. Open Dockset’s menu bar menu and choose Manage Docks…. Select the Dock you want to edit from the selector at the top right.
2. Choose Small spacer or Regular spacer from the add menu.
3. Drag the spacer in the preview to the position you want.
4. Click Save Changes. If you edited the current Dock, click Apply Changes when it appears. If you edited another Dock, click Use this profile to activate it.

New to Dockset? On first setup, Create from Current Dock saves the pinned apps and spacers you already use. You can then add a gap to that arrangement. See how to save and switch Dock layouts for the full setup.

Add a Dock spacer with Terminal

For a single layout, you can add a regular spacer without installing an app. Open Terminal and run these two commands:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'
killall Dock

The first command appends one empty slot to the pinned-app section of your current Dock. The second restarts the Dock so the change appears. The Dock briefly disappears and returns; your other applications are not quit.

Drag the new gap to the position you want. Running the commands again adds another spacer. For a smaller gap, replace spacer-tile with small-spacer-tile.

This uses a Dock preference that Apple does not expose as a spacer button in System Settings. Its behavior can change between macOS releases. The command edits your current Dock; it does not create a collection of named profiles.

Move or remove a spacer

In Dockset, drag the spacer to move it. To delete it from a profile, Control-click it and choose Remove Spacer, then save and apply your changes.

In the macOS Dock, drag the empty slot to reposition it. To remove it, drag the gap up and away from a bottom Dock, or sideways away from a vertical Dock, until the removal indicator appears, then release.

If you manage the same Dock with Dockset, check its saved profile after editing the live Dock. A spacer still saved in a profile can return when that profile is applied again.

Where should the gaps go?

Group apps by what you reach for together. For example, put Mail and chat on one side of a spacer, then your editor and notes on the other. A personal layout could separate everyday tools from games.

Start with one spacer. Regular spacers make groups more distinct; small spacers leave more room for app icons. Too many gaps make the Dock wider without necessarily making it easier to use.

Common questions

Create Dock profiles. Switch in a click or automatically with Focus.Get Dockset for Mac