Release history
Docksmith 1.5.2 is what you get today: everything on this page, in one app. A licence bought at any point includes every 1.x update, and never expires.
Newest first. Each heading is what that release added; the smaller note under it is the corrections that followed.
The Settings toggle is now the master switch. A dock turned off in Settings → Docks stays off: its shortcut answers with a beep, its menu entry greys out, and an automation asking for it is refused with an explanation instead of being silently obeyed. Turning it back on restores the dock exactly as it was left.
Under auto-hide, a dock's shortcut now means “bring it out, and keep it out”. Press ⌃⌘1 and the dock stays on screen, exempt from auto-hide, until you press it again; it waits for your pointer to leave before slipping away. With auto-hide off, the shortcut keeps its classic show/hide meaning. No new setting to learn: the same key simply does the right thing per mode.
Also fixed: after moving a hidden dock along its edge, the hover and knock zones follow immediately instead of listening at the old spot.
Launching an app now shows. Click a tile and a small glass tab appears at the center of the screen: the app’s icon with a ring that turns while it starts and closes the moment it has arrived. The app itself launches immediately; the tab is a witness, never a delay. Settings → General turns it off.
The bars can be made of the system's own Liquid Glass on macOS 26 and later: two new backgrounds, Liquid glass and Clear glass, refract whatever passes behind the dock and answer the pointer with a travelling reflection, with an optional accent tint for dark wallpapers. The palettes, the overview, the shortcut sheet and the launch tab wear the same glass. Earlier systems, and Reduce transparency, keep the frosted materials, exactly as before.
Under the hood: Sparkle moved to 2.9.6 (installer security fixes), and the one private call the window layer leans on can now vanish from a future macOS without taking the app down with it.
A key issued on this site can now be sent straight into the app. A button appears under the message that carries it; one click hands the key to Docksmith's License pane, where activating it is still your click. No copying, no pasting, and a link can never activate anything by itself.
The trial says goodbye before it ends: one quiet reminder when two days remain, one on the last day, and nothing else. No countdown, no badge, and neither ever takes the keyboard from what you were typing.
A trial can be extended, once per Mac. If the week landed badly, the support assistant can re-issue your trial key dated today, after verifying your address. Once, ever; after that, the licence.
Keys also became harder to lose by accident: a valid key can no longer replace a better one, so pasting an expired trial key over a paid licence now changes nothing.
⌃⌘K shows every shortcut currently in force, on one panel: the ones you recorded rather than the defaults, and each dock's own alongside the feature ones. Any key closes it.
⌃⌘P is held rather than tapped: every hidden dock comes out while the keys are down. With auto-hide off it is not registered at all, because there would be nothing for it to reveal.
1.4.1 corrected three things that reported the wrong state, including a peek shortcut that said it had failed when it had not. 1.4.2 gave the first dock something to show before Accessibility is granted, instead of only a permission button.
Every keyboard shortcut became recordable. Click one, press the combination you want. The feature shortcuts live in Settings → General, and each dock gets its own in Settings → Docks.
A dock given a shortcut of its own keeps it when you reorder the list, instead of the positional chord moving to another dock. A chord chosen on purpose never migrates.
⌃⌘S searches your apps. A palette over everything: type a few letters to launch or raise anything in your Applications folders. It needs no Accessibility permission to launch.
⌃⌘O opens files. Desktop, Documents, Downloads and every folder pinned to a dock. ⌘Return lists the apps that can open the selected file, and ⌘1–9 pick one directly.
1.2.1 and 1.2.2 changed wording only: every feature behaved exactly as it did in 1.2.0. An audit found sentences that had gone out of date, one of them a privacy claim, and they were corrected rather than left standing.
From 1.1.0 a key is required before the docks appear: the free trial key or a purchased one. The trial is bound to the machine rather than to an address, which is why it is issued once per Mac and not once per e-mail.
1.1.1 fixed the trial itself: asking for a key from inside the app sent you to the site without the piece it needed.
Up to ten docks, each pinned to a display and an edge, holding the apps and folders you choose. Auto-hide with a reveal zone that belongs to each dock. The knock, for edges a full-screen app has claimed. Pinned folders, the Trash tile, hover previews, Focus mode and the workspace.
1.0.1 replaced the app icon, which turned to mush at the sizes an icon actually lives at, and fixed an overview that showed one cell fewer than it delivered.
One payment, no subscription, no account. A licence covers a stated number of Macs and never expires. Every 1.x update is included: everything on this page, and everything that follows it in the 1.x line.
If a paid 2.0 is ever released, existing customers are offered it at half price and the 1.x they own keeps working. A new major version never disables what was bought.
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