Show Mac dock on all screens

I agree with dwb, however there is a bit more to the story. I had a similar problem as the original poster. Indeed you cannot have the dock CONSTANTLY VISIBLE on more than one display at a time. But if you check the "Automatically show and hide the Dock" box (in System Preferences > Dock), the dock should be available on all screens when you mouse to the bottom. As far as I know this will only work if you also place the dock on the bottom of the display. This reduces the lag time for the Dock to appear instead of having to wait those few seconds for it to jump over from the primary display. Good luck!

The Dock can only appear on one display. I keep my dock on the right side (I have 2 displays so this might be a bit different with 3 but I don't think so.) Open the System Preferences program and select the display tab. Here you can arrange the displays. Notice that one of your displays is shown in this dialog box with a white bar at the top. This is the main display. You can drag it to another display. I've dragged mine to my LCD. The Dock will appear on the main display at the bottom assuming you have your displays arranged from right to left. If they are arranged on top of each other it will display on the bottom display.

The Mac "pretends" multiple displays are one big display. Given this, if your dock is set to appear on the left or right it will appear on the left or right of this virtual setup. That means if I had my dock on the left it would show up on my Mac because my Mac's display is arranged on the left with the LCD on the right.

Given your three monitor setup I think you discovered a way around the vertical setup limitation I talked about earlier. If you set the dock to appear at the "Bottom" and move the cursor to the portion of the screen of any of the three monitors that is NOT shared, then the Dock should appear on that monitor.

So in your three monitor image case you have above, the dock should appear in leftmost monitor if you place cursor in the lower left corner of it. If you place cursor on lower right corner of rightmost monitor then dock should appear. And if you place the cursor anywhere along the bottom of the lowest monitor then the dock should appear.

This "theory" is based on setting my two monitors in a slightly offset vertical arrangement where there really is multiple "bottoms". Still no luck on putting Dock on either right or left and having it appear on anything other than the monitor that has the Toolbar associated with it (top monitor in my case). Here is what my test setup looked like:

So given this additional insight does your setup work this same way when you have Bottom set for Dock location and try seeing if the dock appears on each of the three monitors in the same way?

Good luck...

I don't recall the exact steps but explore this: check box Displays have separate spaces.

You can get the Dock to appear on any single monitor of a multiple monitor setup, but with a caveat.

Since all displays form a single virtual display surface, there is only one "Right" and one "Left" but multiple "Bottoms" if the displays are organized horizontally from left to right. If you organize them vertically there are multiple "Left" and "Right" but a single bottom. Not sure what will happen if you form some sort of "L" shaped pattern as I only have two monitors in my setup - would guess that the rule still holds but unable to verify - perhaps OP can verify with his triple monitor setup?

Unfortunately, only the horizontal Display layout and the "Bottom" Dock setting will allow the Dock to migrate to whichever screen bottom you place the cursor at (takes a second or two for the Dock to appear on the new monitor). So if you have a horizontal arrangement (which you can change in the Displays System Preferences pane) , select "Bottom" for the Dock location in the Dock System Preferences pane, and if you move the cursor to the Bottom of any of the monitors the Dock should appear there in a second or two (I verified this in a two monitor setup - so hopefully OP can verify this in a three monitor setup).

If you have a vertical arrangement, selecting either "Right" or "Left" for the Dock location in the Dock System Preferences pane, and the Dock DOES NOT MOVE to the corresponding monitor edge you move the cursor to - inconsistent and a BIG BUMMER.

This has been the case for quite a while - at least since Yosemite (I verified on a Yosemite two monitor setup also).

I learned this from the article at http://www.techradar.com/how-to/computing/apple/how-to-use-the-mac-os-x-dock-on- all-monitors-1311709

Good luck...

I use a two Display system and if configured correctly the Dock can appear and be used on BOTH Displays or if user desires one Display.

One more piece of info about my setup where I verified that the Dock can appear on multiple monitors on both Sierra and Yosemite.

The Yosemite setup was a MacPro - one monitor was a Hitachi 1920x1080 HDMI (as the leftmost monitor) and the other monitor was an Apple 23" Cinema HD 1920x1200 DVI (as the rightmost monitor) - and each monitor running from it's own separate video cards.

The Sierra setup was MacBook Pro with the builtin LCD 1680x1050 and the same Hitachi 1920x1080 VGA via the mini-display port.

I am guessing that the setup details don't matter so much, but just in case they do wanted to pass on what exactly worked for me.

Like dot.com said, when the displays are side by side and the Dock is placed at the bottom, it can be used in any display; but with your more ellaborate geometry I doubt you can make that work.

I have to ask, though: why do you need the Dock so much? I know people have different ways of working, but as I work and play on my mac many hours a day, I hardly ever use the Dock. Especially in a setup with several large displays, it pays (in time and wrist health) to use the mouse less, and the keyboard more. Switching applications can be done with command-tab much more quickly than reaching for the Dock. Switching windows in the same application, command-`

Launching applications: use Spotlight. Command-space, type two or three letters of the application name, press enter.

I only have two displays to experiment with, so I cannot reproduce your situation.

What I can see is:

-if the displays are side by side, and the Dock is set to the left or right it will appear on the leftmost or rightmost display, respectively (agreeing with the idea of an extended desktop)

-if the displays are side by side, and the Dock is set to the bottom, it will appear in either display, as I move the mouse to its location

-if the displays are one on top of the other, and the Dock is set to the left or right it will appear *only* on the main display (the one that has the menubarlet in System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement)

-if the displays are one on top of the other, and the Dock is set to the bottom, it will appear on whichever display is located at the bottom.

I have been a Mac user since 2012. My issue is that even with dock hiding set to off, the dock hides itself until you click on the right screen where its hiding (when using multiple monitors)

I use three monitors currently side by side. I would like the dock to be in the middle monitor on the bottom of screen

however, 'bottom' alignment will case the dock to switch to any of the three monitors, depending on which one i currently clicked on an app in last. This is extremely bothersome, because i always look to the middle screen at the of the bottom of the screen to use the dock. But sometimes its gone, and i have to mouse around left or right monitors to find out where it is.

The only way to get thge dock to stay put on the same monitor, is to set 'lef' or 'right'

but that means my main dock is to the far right of the right hand screen or to the far left of the left hand screen. It makes no sense to have to 'crick my neck' to the fatrthest point left or right of my desk to control my apps from the dock. But its impossible to set the dock to stay in the middle.

This is one of a few issues which Apple haven't worked on and don't seem to have any intention of working on. This is terrible for people who wqork with multiple screens. Its in my top missing features list in OSX (the other one being a way to default text font size in a new mail on the mail app, which always has tiny tiny text, and on a 4 k screen needs a microscope to read)

That is not what I'm seeing.

I put the Dock at the bottom (I normally have it on the left), and hidden.

I can move the cursor quickly to one screen or the other, hit the bottom and the Dock pops up, under the cursor, on demand, on either screen. Repeated this a number of times and it never failed.

Set a keyboard shortcut for Launchpad&Dock, and use that.

someone must have mentioned this article:

Use multiple displays with your Mac - Apple Support