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PartisanEntity

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 10, 2008
48
0
Hi all,

I have two questions concerning the dock.

a) I accidentally removed an application from the dock the other day and am not sure which, any way I can see log files of the dock to see which apps were on it?

b) Can I lock the dock to prevent accidental app removal?

Thank you!
 

r.j.s

Moderator emeritus
Mar 7, 2007
15,026
52
Texas
No to both.

The dock is all just shortcuts, you can add and remove as you please. If you don't know which app is missing, it wasn't that important to you.
 

Nero Wolfe

macrumors regular
Oct 28, 2007
245
19
Atlanta, GA
To your first question, I don't know. If you have Time Machine running, and it's backing up your library you could grab the com.apple.dock.plist file and replace the one in your current library.

As for locking the contents, yes you can. Either via a terminal command (which I don't know) or by using an app such as Docker, which is free. (Sorry I don't know the website off hand.)

Hope this helps!
 

Simplicated

macrumors 65816
Sep 20, 2008
1,422
254
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
To lock objects inside the dock, simply type this into Terminal:

Code:
defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool YES; killall Dock
Now you can't add things to the dock, neither remove them.

To revert just replace the YES with NO.

There's more you can play with, by replacing contents-immutable with:
position-immutable - Locks the ability to change the Dock position
size-immutable - Locks the ability to change the size of the Dock
 

r.j.s

Moderator emeritus
Mar 7, 2007
15,026
52
Texas
To lock objects inside the dock, simply type this into Terminal:

Code:
defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool YES; killall Dock
Now you can't add things to the dock, neither remove them.

To revert just replace the YES to NO.

There's more you can play with, by replacing contents-immutable with:
position-immutable - Locks the ability to change the Dock position
size-immutable - Locks the ability to change the size of the Dock

Apparently, I was wrong.

You learn something new everyday.
 

mamaz13

macrumors newbie
Feb 4, 2013
1
0
A Simpler Solution to unlocking the dock

On an Older (non-2012 Mac Air) under MacHD/Library/Scripts/Dock - you will see 2 links, a lock and unlock. For our school system, (not sure about non corporate computers) we have to click twice to activate either command.

Louise Zwileneff
Computer Technician Trainer/ Novell Network Administrator
Stafford County Public Schools
 
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