Is there a way to clean up the system tray at the bottom?

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

I like the dock and I usually fill it so that it's as wide as the screen.

Am I weird?

Not a bit.

I've used Mac OS for over 13 years. I've tried putting the dock on the left... on the right... I've turned on auto-hide... I've tried all of these things, on numerous separate occasions. I've always reverted to having the dock visible, at the bottom. I do make it a bit smaller and narrower than the default setting, with the icons a bit smaller than they are on my iPhone.

 

[jdb8167]

Not a bit.

I've used Mac OS for over 13 years. I've tried putting the dock on the left... on the right... I've turned on auto-hide... I've tried all of these things, on numerous separate occasions. I've always reverted to having the dock visible, at the bottom. I do make it a bit smaller and narrower than the default setting, with the icons a bit smaller than they are on my iPhone.

I’ve never understood putting the dock on the side if you are using auto hide. It makes sense if you leave the Dock visible since there is less vertical space than width. But if you auto hide you want the shorter vertical distance to the bottom of the screen so you don’t need to move the cursor as far.

 

[tarsins]

Not a bit.

I've used Mac OS for over 13 years. I've tried putting the dock on the left... on the right... I've turned on auto-hide... I've tried all of these things, on numerous separate occasions. I've always reverted to having the dock visible, at the bottom. I do make it a bit smaller and narrower than the default setting, with the icons a bit smaller than they are on my iPhone.

We are Mac twins. It makes me "uncomfortable" if I can't see the dock.

 

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

I’ve never understood putting the dock on the side if you are using auto hide. It makes sense if you leave the Dock visible since there is less vertical space than width. But if you auto hide you want the shorter vertical distance to the bottom of the screen so you don’t need to move the cursor as far.

Yeah, I've found that autohide slows me down too much... my muscle memory is very good, but not good enough to for the cursor to end up right on the dock icon I want when the dock is hidden. So first I have to move the pointer down or to the side to show the dock, then then find the icon I actually want. I'd rather just have everything visible all the time, so I can swipe directly to the right icon from the get-go.

 

[Saturn007]

Some can't understand why users leave the dock visible; I can't understand why anyone leaves it at the bottom! 😎

I always put the dock on the right side so I can see more lines in a word processing document, more rows in a spreadsheet, and more of the night sky towards the zenith. When I'm working on a manuscript, I hide the dock and turn the setting to Hide/Show on mouse over. Otherwise, it remains visible on the right, for one-click access to apps.

You can also shrink its size so it's less distracting, no matter where it is positioned.

I think most users just stick to the defaults. Many have little adventurous spirit or a latent fear of technology — they feel as if they'll break something if they rummage in the settings. Many on MR are quite the opposite — fiddling, tweaking, repositioning, and customizing to get the look we want. We're far more likely to go into settings, preferences, etc., hoping, and expecting, to find controls to change the look and behavior of whatever we're working in.

 

[Fatus_Asticus]

I like the minimize the dock, helps with screen real estate. If you're on a 27 iMac it isn't as big of a deal but if you are on a 14 inch screen it can take up a bit of the real estate.

I prefer to leave recent apps on there. It is helpful to know what is open and sometimes you don't command q things and it can be easy to leave crap open that doesn't need to be open. Not a huge issue but its nice to know what is still open or not. You can remove habitually open apps from recents like your password manager or adguard etc.