I cannot see "remove from dock" icon in dock panel

Question

Level 1

8 points

I cannot see "remove from dock" icon in dock panel

Hi All,

I have upgraded my Mac book Pro with latest El Capitan version 10.11.

I have two problem in my dock panel.

First of all, when I right click any application in dock panel, there is no "remove from dock" button so I cannot remove applications from my dock panel.

Second is, I have installed office 2011 (power point, word, excel, outlook, lync) and then remove outlook and lync application from my computer. After delete operation is succeed, outlook and lync application's icons are changed with "?" icon in my dock such as ghost icon. Applications are deleted and I cannot run from dock.

I have googled my question and I found some solution then I applied but didn't work for me.

First solution

"Remove from Dock" doesn't work anymore because of El Capitan's rootless feature.

To disable rootless:

1. Restart your computer, while booting hold down Command-R to boot into recovery mode.

2. Once booted, navigate to "Utilities > Terminal" in the top menu bar.

3. Enter "csrutil disable" in the terminal window and hit the return key.

You'll be prompted "Successfully disabled System Integrity Protection. Please restart the machine for the changes to take effect."

After restarting the "Remove from Dock" options work again.

To reenable rootless, follow the steps above, except enter "csrutil enable" for step 3.

Second solution advice

In Finder look for yourusername/library/preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and delete it.

Then log out and log in again. Your Dock will be resetted to default settings and deleting icons should work again.

Please help me if you faced before.

Thanks and Regards.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11), dock problem

Posted on Oct 13, 2015 1:26 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 13, 2015 1:41 PM in response to eozdemir90

You can remove an icon from the doc if it is one you added AND the application is not running.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Application NOT running

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Application running

Notice tha tthe text "Remove from Dock" is available when the application is NOT running, then changes to a check mark "Keep in Dock". When the application is running, if you select the contextual menu item "Options > Keep in Dock" then the check mark will change to the opposite state (check or unchecked).

If an application is running but is not normally kept in the doc, then the only option will be the "Options > Keep in Dock" which you can check or uncheck.

Since you removed applications that previously had icons in the dock, it is not surprising that the icons turn to the "?" as the application is gone that the shortcut was pointing to.

you can drag the icons out of the dock by clicking and holding on the icon, then drag it to the middle of the screen, then release.

If you delete the applications Outlook and Lync then they are gone (removed, zapped, nixed, deleted, etc.). Since they are deleted from your computer they are not available to run. If you want to run these applications run the installer again and do not remove the applications.

Can you share why you wanted to remove the applications after installing them?

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Answer 2

eozdemir90 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 13, 2015 1:47 PM in response to Wayne Contello

Hello Wayne,

I'm sure, applications are not running. Please check the below screen shot...

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Answer 3

Oct 13, 2015 1:50 PM in response to eozdemir90

Can you drag the excel icon out of the dock?

What if you reboot the computer?

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Answer 4

eozdemir90 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 13, 2015 1:51 PM in response to Wayne Contello

Yes, I tried. It was same.

Also, I have restarted my PC. It was same again.

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Answer 5

eozdemir90 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 13, 2015 2:00 PM in response to eozdemir90

Also I have created new user which role is administrator and then logged with new admin user. I can see "remove from dock" button on new user. This is very interesting issue.

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Answer 6

Oct 14, 2015 3:21 AM in response to eozdemir90

Go to the folder:

~/Library/Preferences

hold the option key then select the Finder menu item "Go > Library..."

then locate the folder "Preferences"

now locate the files:

com.apple.dock.db

com.apple.dock.plist

com.apple.dock.plist.lockfile

now moved these files to the desktop

logout and back in

now check and see if the dock is behaving better. If it is, the trash the files you moved. You may have to reset up settings for the Dock

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Answer 7

eozdemir90 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 14, 2015 3:25 AM in response to Wayne Contello

Hello Wayne,

I have checked files on related directory;

Below files doesn't exist on related directory..

com.apple.dock.db

com.apple.dock.plist.lockfile

But com.apple.dock.plist was existed. I have removed it then log-out and log-in again. It's working now !

Also ghost items are removed from my dock.

Thanks for support.

Do you have any idea, why did this problem occur? If you know that, please share with us as experience share 🙂

Thanks again.

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Answer 8

Oct 14, 2015 5:21 AM in response to eozdemir90

these are preferences files. I suspect the file you removed was corrupted in some way.

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