How to Hide the Dots Under Open Apps in the Mac Dock

Every running app gets a small dot beneath its Dock icon. Useful if you actively manage what's open; visual static if you don't. macOS lets you switch the dots off with a single toggle — and there's a matching Terminal command if you'd rather script it. Both are instantly reversible.

Turn the dots off in System Settings

1. Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
2. Find Show indicators for open applications in the Dock section.
3. Turn it off.

The dots vanish immediately — no restart needed. Flip the same switch back on to restore them. The toggle sits in the same place on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia.

Or do it from Terminal

# hide the running-app indicator dots
defaults write com.apple.dock show-process-indicators -bool false
killall Dock

# undo: show the dots again
defaults write com.apple.dock show-process-indicators -bool true
killall Dock

This writes the exact same preference as the System Settings toggle, so the two stay in sync — useful for a dotfiles script that sets up a new Mac in one run. killall Dock just restarts the Dock process to load the change; it takes a second and doesn't disturb your windows. You can also clear the key entirely with defaults delete com.apple.dock show-process-indicators followed by killall Dock, which returns the default (dots on).

Should you hide them?

The dots answer one question: is this app running? Whether that question matters depends on how you use a Mac.

• Hide them if you basically never quit apps — which, on Apple Silicon, is most people. When everything is always running, every icon has a dot and the indicator carries no information; it's pure clutter. Minimalist setups hide them for the same reason they hide the menu bar: fewer pixels asking for attention.
• Keep them if you quit apps deliberately to manage memory or focus, or you rely on the dot to tell a running app from a pinned-but-closed one before you click. On Intel Macs where heavy apps still cost real resources, that glance is genuinely useful.

Two things worth knowing before you commit. First, hiding the dots changes nothing about app behavior — apps launch, run, and quit exactly as before; you've only removed the label. Cmd+Tab still shows you precisely what's running whenever you want the truth. Second, the dot is also the only visible difference between “click to switch” and “click to launch” — without it, clicking a heavyweight app you thought was open may cost you a bounce and a five-second wait. Most people who try the clean look keep it; the rest flip the toggle back in a day, which is exactly one click of effort either way.

A smarter dot, instead of no dot

If your complaint isn't the dots themselves but that they don't say enough, consider the opposite tweak: the Dock has a hidden showhidden preference that renders apps you've hidden with Cmd+H as translucent icons. Combined with the dots, that gives the Dock three readable states — running, running-but-hidden, and not running — which is far more informative than the stock two. And if you're pruning visual noise wholesale, the indicator toggle pairs naturally with auto-hiding the Dock and shrinking its size: each is one setting, each is instantly reversible, and together they reclaim a surprising amount of screen.

Go one step cleaner

If you're chasing a minimal Dock, the natural companion tweak is stopping minimized windows from piling up as thumbnails — see how to minimize windows into the app icon. With both changes in place, the Dock stays the same size and shape all day, no matter how chaotic the workload behind it gets.