How to Make App Folders in the Mac Dock (Group Apps Like on iPhone)

macOS has no built-in way to group apps into folders in the Dock — you can't drag one app onto another the way you can on an iPhone. The closest native option is a folder of aliases in the Finder dropped onto the Dock as a stack, which works but looks nothing like a real folder and requires manual upkeep. If you want actual iPhone-style app groups directly in the Dock, the only app that does this properly right now is Dockish.

Why the Mac Dock doesn't have folders

Apple has never added folder support to the macOS Dock, despite doing exactly this on iOS since 2010. The Dock has remained architecturally the same for years: a flat list of app icons, with stacks as the only grouping primitive. Stacks are useful for folders of documents or downloads, but they're awkward for apps — there's no persistent icon on the Dock representing the group, just a pile of recent files or a grid that pops up and disappears.

This isn't a forgotten feature. Apple actively chose not to bring iOS-style folders to the macOS Dock. If you have 30+ apps pinned, you either scroll through a crowded Dock or accept that most of your apps live in Launchpad instead.

The native workaround: Dock stacks (and why they fall short)

The standard workaround is to create a folder in Finder, populate it with aliases of your apps, then drag the folder to the right-hand side of the Dock (past the divider line). macOS turns it into a stack.

Here's how to do it:

1. Open Finder and create a new folder somewhere — your Desktop or ~/Applications works fine.
2. Open a second Finder window and go to /Applications.
3. Hold ⌥ and drag apps into your new folder. This creates aliases rather than moving the originals.
4. Drag the folder to the right side of the Dock (the section that holds Trash and Downloads).

You can right-click the stack to change its display style: Grid, Fan, or List. Grid is the most app-folder-like visually.

What's wrong with this approach:

• It only works on the right side of the Dock, not mixed in with your main app icons on the left.
• There's no persistent folder icon — the stack shows the most recent app icon, which changes and looks messy.
• Adding or removing apps means going back into Finder and managing aliases manually.
• It doesn't look like a folder. It looks like a stack.
• Clicking an app inside the stack launches it, but you can't drag to reorder.

For a small number of grouped apps — say, all your creative tools together — the stack method is genuinely fine. For anything more than that, it's a workaround you'll constantly fight.

How Dockish does app folders properly

Dockish is a full Dock replacement for macOS 14+ that adds iPhone-style folders as a first-class feature. You drag one app icon onto another and a folder is created — exactly the gesture you'd use on an iPhone or iPad. The folder shows a 2×2 preview grid of the apps inside it, auto-names itself based on the app categories, and sits anywhere in your Dock alongside your other icons.

Inside a folder, apps behave exactly as they do in the main Dock: single click to launch, click again to focus an already-running app, right-click for context menus. You can rename the folder by clicking its name. Drag apps in or out at any time.

A few things that make this more useful than it might sound:

• You can put it anywhere. Unlike native stacks, a Dockish folder lives in the main icon area, not banished to the right-hand side.
• The icon is stable. The 2×2 grid always shows the same apps — it doesn't reshuffle based on recent use.
• It scales with your Dock. Dockish lets you set icon sizes from 24–96px with magnification on hover, so folders don't look out of place at any size.

Dockish costs $6.99 as a one-time purchase and includes a 7-day free trial, so you can test the folder behaviour before buying. It requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.

What Dockish replaces vs what it adds

Dockish is a full Dock replacement, not a plugin on top of the macOS Dock. When you run it, you can hide the native macOS Dock entirely (there's a one-click toggle in preferences, fully reversible) and use Dockish instead. This means you also get:

• A Dock on every monitor — the native Dock moves between displays; Dockish puts one on each screen simultaneously.
• Correct click behaviour — clicking a minimised app actually brings it back, rather than doing nothing.
• Live window previews on hover.
• Themes — glass, dark, light, or a custom tint colour.
• Dividers and spacers for visual grouping even without folders.

If the only thing you want is folders, those other features come along for the ride. But in practice, most people who start using Dockish for folders end up keeping it for the multi-monitor support alone.

If you just want a tidier Dock without a replacement app

If installing a full Dock replacement feels like more than you need, here are two lighter options:

Use Dock spacers. You can add invisible spacers to the Dock via Terminal to create visual gaps between groups of apps:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-type="spacer-tile";}'
killall Dock

Run this once per spacer you want. Spacers appear as blank gaps you can drag into position. They don't group apps into folders, but they create enough visual separation that a Dock with 20–30 apps becomes much easier to scan.

Use Launchpad more deliberately. Launchpad (F4, or pinch on the trackpad) does support folders — drag one app onto another exactly like iOS. It's ugly and slow to open, but if you mainly launch apps via Spotlight anyway, keeping a tidier Launchpad and a shorter Dock might be all you need.

Neither of these gives you actual folders in the Dock. They're honest workarounds, not solutions.

Common questions

Can you group apps on the left side of the Mac Dock natively?

No. Native Dock stacks (folders) are restricted to the right side of the Dock — the section past the divider line that holds Trash and Downloads. You cannot place a grouped folder of app shortcuts on the left side without a third-party app like Dockish.

Does Dockish replace the native Dock or run alongside it?

Dockish runs as its own Dock and gives you a one-click option to hide the native macOS Dock. If you hide the native Dock, Dockish takes over entirely. If you prefer, you can run both at the same time, though that looks cluttered. The native Dock can be re-enabled at any time from Dockish's preferences.

Do Dock folders in Dockish work with macOS Sonoma and Sequoia?

Yes. Dockish requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, so it runs on both Sonoma and Sequoia. The folder feature works the same on both versions — drag one app onto another to create a group, regardless of which macOS release you're on.