Dock keeps auto-hiding on macOS Tahoe

Have seen this issue before and they too were using macOS 26.0 with a Mac Mini

They may have said that using the Terminal command may have fixed the issue

killall Dock

Personally, using both a M2 and M4 Mac Mini with Tahoe 26.0

Have yet to experience this Dock issue

If all else fails

Holding the Option key

Finder >> Go >> Library >> Preferences

Find the .plist file >> com.apple.dock.plist <<

Move it to a place for safe keeping as you may or may not to put it back

Drag to com.apple.dock.plist out of its location

Restart the computer and then Test of the Dock issue persists or not

In theory the restart should create a new .plist file for the Dock

If no issues , it may indicate the original files became corrupted

That is not the expected behavior.

See if the problem is present when you boot in safe mode, which disables 3rd party extensions and performs some system cleanup.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

If that clears it up, reboot normally and quite likely the issue will be gone.

DominoChance wrote:

AND there's no com.apple.dock anything in my preferences. Mac Mini M2.

hmmm— I see it here on my macOS 26

Finder>Go>Go To Folder, copy & paste:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

You can try simply resetting Dock from the Terminal.app copy ask paste:

defaults delete com.apple.dock && killall Dock

and compare your results.

In my case I noticed this bug was related to screen saver.

Try switching off screen saver, waiting a few seconds and then back on.

This worked for me.

Regards,

Here's the solution: manually resize the dock. Click and drag up to make it larger, then back to your desired size.

Since then, no issues.

I had tried all the other suggestions with no luck - turning the settings on and off, killall in terminal, restarting, etc, but this seems to have solved it for me.

So far so good on my M4 iMac.

Moved to Trash: com.apple.dock.extra.plist, com.apple.dock.plist, com.apple.dock.plist.lockfile

Restarted and all is fine as of now.

Similar thread:

Dock disappears randomly on macOS Tahoe 26.0 -AF

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256138247?sortBy=oldest_first

Report this bug to Apple & maybe if enough people report it, they will fix it.

I usually can get dock back by using hot corners to either turn display off/on or start & then stop screensaver.

I think this has something to do with the Screensaver. I set Screensaver to Never and the Dock seems to work as expected.

I’ve found it is better to configure the screen to turn off at 2-3 minutes of inactivity instead of using the screen saver. With this setting, the Dock remains alive.

I turned OFF the Screensaver to see if that helps and so far so good. The only reason I turned OFF Screensaver is because the transition on my iMac M4 from Screensaver to Desktop is a little jumpy. Not a smooth transition.

So I'm thinking maybe that has some effect on the Dock. Simply just a guess and nothing to lose.

So glad I finally found a relevant thread that doesn't tell us to go into Settings and disable auto-hide.

Been having this problem as well. Was having it on my MBP 16 and now I am having it on my brand new Mac Studio. Mostly happens after the screensaver, but it also happens when returning from full screen in YouTube and Plex.

Submitted feedback with the Feedback Assistant and there it sits.

Hopefully this gets fixed sometime soon. For now, using the keyboard shortcut of Option-Command-D is a quick way to bring it back when it auto hides.

As others have said, file a bug report to get Apple’s attention (I did):

Feedback - macOS - Apple

You might want to read the earlier posts about submitting feedback to Apple. A “me too” response here does not get to Apple’s attention. Send feedback and it will.

Feedback - macOS - Apple

For what it's worth the beta of Tahoe 26.1 is now out for developers. You may have to wait for an update.

Yours is not the first report—

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

I'm having the same/similar issue. Mac Studio M4, Tahoe 26.0, Dual Mac Studio Displays

I have auto-hide off, but the dock will hide and even when I mouse down to the bottom of the screen, it doesn't always unhide.

If I toggle the setting on then off, the dock remains unhidden. That works for about a week, then it starts hiding again (even the the setting is still off).