Keyboard
macOS gives you one. ⌥⌘D turns Dock hiding on and off. There is no shortcut to move the Dock to another display, none to show it on a second screen, and none to reach a particular app in it.
That is the whole of it. The Dock is a mouse target on macOS: everything else about it (where it lives, which display shows it, what it holds) is a trip to System Settings.
Docksmith is keyboard-first, so every one of its own docks and palettes answers to a chord. These are the defaults, and every one of them can be changed.
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌃⌘A | All open apps |
| ⌃⌘S | Search apps |
| ⌃⌘O | Open a file |
| ⌃⌘V | Focus mode |
| ⌃⌘W | Workspace |
| ⌃⌘K | Keyboard shortcuts |
| ⌃⌘P | Peek at all docks |
| ⌃⌘1…⌃⌘9 | Show or hide docks 1 to 9 |
| ⌃⌘0 | Show or hide the tenth dock |
⌃⌘P is held rather than tapped: the docks stay out while the keys are down. It is not registered at all when auto-hide is off, because there would be nothing for it to reveal.
The seven feature shortcuts live in Settings → General, and each dock gets its own in Settings → Docks. Click one and press the combination you want. There is a reset per shortcut and one for all of them.
Two honest limits. A shortcut needs at least two modifier keys. And macOS gives no way to know in advance whether another app already owns a chord, nor does it report the clash. So if one does nothing when you press it, record a different one and it works.
⌃⌘K puts every shortcut currently in force on one panel: the live list, not the defaults, so a chord you recorded shows exactly as you recorded it, and each dock's own appears beside the feature ones. Any key closes it.
Docksmith answers docksmith:// links, so Shortcuts, Raycast, BetterTouchTool or cron can trigger the same actions. Each dock's show, hide and toggle links are shown in its Docks tab; focus, the overview, both palettes and the shortcut sheet have their own.
There is deliberately no link for the peek: it lives on keys being held, and a URL has no way to say “released”.
A macOS Focus mode can run a Shortcut, and a Shortcut can open one of these, so your docks can follow your Focus.
macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. The palettes and the docks work with no special permission; Accessibility is what the window features need: the overview, per-tile window lists, Focus mode and the workspace.
Download it, open it, and ask for a trial key from inside the app. No card, no account.
macOS 14+ · Notarized by Apple · One payment, no subscription
More detail: changing a shortcut in the manual, the full reference, and the automation links.