Mac Dock Auto-Hide: How to Actually Customise It (Speed, Delay, and Per-Monitor Behaviour)

macOS gives you one toggle for dock auto-hide — on or off — and nothing else. No speed control, no per-monitor setting, no configurable delay before the dock appears. If you want any of that, you either use a Terminal command or switch to a dock app that treats these as first-class options.

What macOS actually lets you change about auto-hide

In System Settings → Desktop & Dock, the auto-hide section has exactly two controls:

• Automatically hide and show the Dock — the main toggle
• Automatically hide and show the menu bar — separate, not relevant here

That's it. There is no slider for reveal speed, no option to change the delay before the dock slides in, and no way to set different behaviour per monitor. Every display connected to your Mac gets identical auto-hide behaviour.

How to change dock auto-hide speed with Terminal

Apple doesn't expose these settings in System Settings, but they're stored as user defaults that you can write directly. Open Terminal and run:

bash defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.3 defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0 killall Dock

What each line does:

• autohide-time-modifier — controls the animation duration in seconds. The default is 0.5. Lower values (try 0.2–0.4) make the slide faster. Setting it to 0 makes the dock appear and disappear instantly with no animation.
• autohide-delay — controls how long you have to hover at the screen edge before the dock begins to appear. The default is approximately 0.5 seconds. Setting it to 0 makes the dock respond immediately.
• killall Dock — restarts the Dock process so the new values take effect.

To reset either value back to the system default:

bash defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-delay killall Dock

These changes survive reboots. They don't survive an OS reinstall, but they're easy to re-apply.

Why auto-hide feels sluggish on multiple monitors

If you run two or more displays and keep the dock on the bottom (or side) edge, you'll notice the delay feels worse on non-primary monitors. That's because macOS doesn't actually show the dock on every monitor simultaneously — it moves to whichever screen your cursor is on, but only after the auto-hide delay has passed. The result on secondary monitors is a longer-feeling wait, because you're both waiting for the dock to "migrate" and then waiting for it to animate in.

The Terminal fix above (autohide-delay -float 0) helps, but the underlying architecture — one dock, one monitor — is why multi-monitor auto-hide always feels slightly off on stock macOS.

When a dock replacement makes more sense than Terminal tweaks

Terminal commands work, but they have limits: there's no GUI to adjust them later, they apply globally to every monitor, and you're still working within the constraints of the system dock.

I built Dockish specifically because these pain points compound. Dockish puts a real, independent dock on every connected monitor — not the same dock shuffling across screens. Each dock auto-hides independently with a configurable delay you set from a slider, not a Terminal command. The ⌥⌘D global shortcut shows or hides all docks instantly, which is useful when you need to grab something from the edge quickly.

Auto-hide in Dockish also handles fullscreen video better than the system dock does — it detects fullscreen playback and stays out of the way, rather than occasionally triggering at the wrong moment when your cursor drifts near the screen edge.

If auto-hide behaving correctly across three monitors is your actual problem, that's the faster fix than maintaining Terminal defaults.

How to stop the dock from hiding when using a specific app

Sometimes you want auto-hide on most of the time, but pinned for a specific workflow — say, when you're in Xcode dragging files, or doing pixel work in Figma where the cursor goes near the edge constantly.

The system dock has no concept of per-app auto-hide behaviour. Your options with stock macOS:

1. Disable auto-hide temporarily — System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Automatically hide and show the Dock (toggle off, then back on when done). Keyboard shortcut: ⌥⌘D toggles auto-hide on and off without opening Settings.
2. Increase the delay — A higher autohide-delay value (try 1.0 or 1.5) means the dock won't appear unless you've actually paused at the screen edge, which reduces accidental triggers.
3. Move the dock to a different edge — If the cursor is often near the bottom of the screen in your main app, moving the dock to the left or right edge removes the collision entirely.

Dock position and which edge works best with auto-hide

Auto-hide works on bottom, left, and right edges. The physics are slightly different:

• Bottom edge — the most common, most prone to accidental triggers if your workflow keeps the cursor low (video timelines, spreadsheets, browser tabs).
• Left or right edge — less accidental trigger risk for most apps. If you're on an ultrawide or large monitor, the side position can also mean a shorter mouse trip.

To change dock position: System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Position on screen → Left, Bottom, or Right.

With Dockish, each monitor can have its dock on a different edge if you want — the dock on your main display on the bottom, a secondary monitor's dock on the right. That's not possible with the system dock.

Common questions

How do I make the Mac dock appear faster when auto-hide is on?

Run defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0 && killall Dock in Terminal. This removes the hover delay entirely so the dock starts animating the moment your cursor reaches the screen edge. You can also speed up the animation itself with defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.2 && killall Dock.

Can I have the dock auto-hide on one monitor but stay visible on another?

Not with the system dock — auto-hide is a global setting that applies to every display. Dockish (appish.app/dockish) supports independent docks per monitor, each with their own show/hide behaviour, so you can have a persistent dock on your main display and auto-hiding docks on secondary monitors.

Does auto-hide slow down the dock on macOS Sequoia specifically?

The default auto-hide delay (~0.5s) and animation speed (0.5s) haven't changed in Sequoia. What some users notice is that Sequoia's window tiling interactions can occasionally cause the dock trigger zone to behave unexpectedly near snapped windows — using a lower autohide-delay value or switching dock edges usually resolves it.