Dock (macOS)

Dock

Developer(s)	Apple Inc.
Initial release	2000; 24 years ago (2000)
Operating system	macOS
Service name	Dock.app
Type	Taskbar
Website	support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-apps-from-the-dock-mh35859/mac

The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of macOS. It is used to launch applications and to switch between running applications. The Dock is also a prominent feature of macOS's predecessor NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP operating systems. The earliest known implementations of a dock are found in operating systems such as RISC OS and NeXTSTEP. iOS has its own version of the Dock for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as does iPadOS for the iPad.

Apple applied for a US patent for the design of the Dock in 1999 and was granted the patent in October 2008, nearly a decade later.^[1] Any application can be dragged and dropped onto the Dock to add it to the dock, and any application can be dragged from the dock to remove it, except for Finder and Trash, which are permanent fixtures as the leftmost and rightmost items (or highest and lowest items if the Dock is vertically oriented), respectively. Part of the macOS Core Services, Dock.app is located at /System/Library/CoreServices/.