Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!
Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >
Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >
Hey there,
I set my Dock to appear on the left side of the screen. On my MacBook screen this works. But on my external I cannot get the Dock to appear like I can when it is on the bottom.
Here is a screenshot of my Dock settings:
Is it possible to use the Dock on the left side on my external monitor too?
Thanks.
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.6
What you are seeing is expected behavior.
When using extended display, and the Dock is set to one of the sides, the Dock will only appear on edge of the combined display - e.g., if it is on the left, it appears only on the leftmost display.
I have the Dock always hidden on the right side. I, for one, would be very annoyed if it were to appear in the middle of my work, when I am moving the cursor to my left display...
What you are seeing is expected behavior.
When using extended display, and the Dock is set to one of the sides, the Dock will only appear on edge of the combined display - e.g., if it is on the left, it appears only on the leftmost display.
I have the Dock always hidden on the right side. I, for one, would be very annoyed if it were to appear in the middle of my work, when I am moving the cursor to my left display...
Hello ghjklöä,
Are you using the external display as a mirrored display of the Mac's internal display or is it an extended display?
Are you seeing any Dock at all on the external monitor or does nothing seem to appear?
If nothing appears, try holding the cursor at the edge of where the Dock would appear.
This page can provide some help with using external displays with the Mac as well: Use one or more external displays with your Mac - Apple Support
Cheers.
Hello Eric_G1,
Thank you for your response.
I am using the external display as an extended display.
On the external display the Dock appears at the bottom if I set it to appear at the bottom. If I set the position to right or left, it does not appear at all at any edge of the external display. Only on my MacBooks display.
When I set the external display to be the main display and the MacBook display to be the extended display the Dock only shows on my external display.
So either way it only ever shows on the main display and never on the extended display.
It only shows on the main display at the left/right edge when holding/pushing the cursor there.
The article does not mention any settings about the Dock. FYI: I connected the external display via HDMI, it gets recognized by MacOS correctly.
Cheers!
Understood Eric_G1,
Now it is expected that the dock will only display on one of the displays based on orientation. So a Left orientation will display on the leftmost monitor and so on. When you push the cursor on the main display, then that indicates to the system that is the active monitor and will move the dock there. It will not, however, display the dock on both simultaneously when they are set as an extended desktop, since the system sees both monitors as one unified space.
Cheers!
Ok, thank you all for your help.
That is kind of funny though because I put my external display on top of the other one and when using Dock at the bottom it behaves exactly as I wanted it to. It mostly only shows when I need it to although the mouse travels through that edge all the time.
Have a nice day everybody!
I think that is probably because by far the most common usage of multiple displays is side by side.
You can use the feedback page to make a request.
If you don't mind my asking, what is it that you use the Dock for? To my mind, it is utterly dispensable, so much so that I have it hidden and used Terminal to increase the delay, so as to avoid it appearing accidentally (one can still show the Dock on demand with Command-Option-D, but in fact I really only use it when testing stuff discussed here in the forum). Switch applications? Command-tab. Switch windows? Command-`. Launch applications? Command-Space (Spotlight), type two or three letters, end. All done without reaching for the trackpad.
You are not wrong about that :D I basically only use it for quick access to downloaded files and sometimes for applications. Mostly though for open files that are minimized to the Dock. Other than that I mainly use Spotlight.
I think I will make a request at the feedback page, thanks for the advice!
Dock does not show on external monitor when on left side
