Hide the Dock during presentations

You're mirroring to a projector, the slide is up — and every time your cursor drifts to the bottom of the screen, the Dock pops into view for the whole room. Auto-hiding the Dock stops the surprise appearances. Here's how to set it before you present, and why the Dock behaves differently in a true full-screen app.

Turn on auto-hide before you go live

Do this before you connect to the projector, not during. With auto-hide on, the Dock is off-screen and only returns on a deliberate pointer push to the edge — so it won't flash up while you gesture at a slide.

1. Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
2. Turn on Automatically hide and show the Dock.

Or set it in one line, which is quick to run right before a meeting:

# Hide the Dock for the presentation
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true
killall Dock

# Undo afterwards
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool false
killall Dock

Keep Cmd+Option+D in mind too — it toggles the Dock instantly, so if it does appear you can dismiss it without leaving your slide.

Why the Dock appears even mid-slide

It comes down to how you're presenting. In a true full-screen app — Keynote's Play mode, PowerPoint's Slide Show, a full-screen PDF — macOS hides the Dock automatically, and this whole problem never appears. The Dock intrudes when you're presenting in a window or mirrored desktop: a shared Zoom screen, a browser tab, an app that isn't in full-screen. There, the desktop rules apply, and a pointer at the bottom edge summons the Dock. Auto-hide is what makes that summon deliberate instead of accidental.

Keep the rest of the screen clean too

The Dock isn't the only thing that can crash your slide. Two more worth setting before you present:

• Turn on Do Not Disturb so a message preview doesn't appear over your deck.
• Clear the desktop behind a mirrored session with how to hide desktop icons on Mac, in case you switch out of the app.

Between a hidden Dock, no notifications, and a bare desktop, nothing lands on the projector that you didn't put there.

The opposite problem: a missing Dock in full screen

If your issue is that you want the Dock reachable inside a full-screen app, that's a different setting — see how to show the Dock in full-screen apps on Mac.