Reset the Dock to Default Settings on Mac

Whether your Dock has accumulated years of clutter or a tweak left it misbehaving, macOS can return it to the day-one layout with one command. The command is genuinely one line — the skill is knowing what it erases and banking an undo before you run it.

First: maybe you only need a restart

If the Dock is frozen, invisible, or rendering oddly — but its contents are fine — don't reset it. Restart it:

# relaunch the Dock process, settings untouched
killall Dock

The Dock vanishes for a second and comes back with your layout intact. This fixes most glitches (stuck icons, ghost badges, a Dock that ignores clicks) and costs nothing. Only move on to a full reset if the problem survives a restart, or if wiping the clutter is the point.

Bank your undo, then reset

A reset erases the Dock's entire preference file. Two preparations make it painless:

1. Screenshot your current Dock (press Shift+Cmd+4 and drag across it) so you can rebuild the app order from memory later.
2. Export the preference file — this is the real undo:

   defaults export com.apple.dock ~/Desktop/dock-backup.plist

3. Now reset:

   defaults delete com.apple.dock && killall Dock

The Dock relaunches looking like a new user account: stock Apple apps, default size, bottom of the screen. If you regret it, restore your export:

# undo: put everything back as it was
defaults import com.apple.dock ~/Desktop/dock-backup.plist && killall Dock

Exactly what a reset wipes

• Your app lineup — everything you added or removed; the default set returns.
• Folders, files, and spacers — Downloads-style stacks and any spacer tiles are gone.
• Size, magnification, and position — back to medium, off, and bottom.
• Behavior settings — auto-hide, minimize effect, "show recent applications," indicator lights: all back to defaults.
• Hidden tweaks — every defaults write com.apple.dock … customization you've ever applied (autohide delay, static-only mode, and the rest) lives in this same file and is wiped with it. If your Dock tweaks came from years of copied Terminal commands, a reset is actually the cleanest way to shed them all at once.

What it does not touch: your apps themselves, Launchpad, or anything outside the Dock. Removing an icon from the Dock never uninstalls anything.

Surgical alternative: reset one setting, not all

If a single tweak is the problem — an auto-hide delay you regret, say — you don't need the full wipe. Delete just that key and the rest of your layout survives:

# remove one customization, keep everything else
defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-delay
killall Dock

The same pattern works for any Dock key you've set with defaults write — deleting the key returns that one behavior to factory default. Size, magnification, and position are also adjustable the ordinary way in System Settings → Desktop & Dock, no Terminal involved.

One neighboring reset people often actually want: Launchpad's icon grid. That's stored separately, with its own documented switch — defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true && killall Dock rebuilds Launchpad to its alphabetical default while leaving your Dock alone. The flag consumes itself after the rebuild, so there's nothing to undo. Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia all store Dock preferences the same way, so every command here behaves identically across them.

Rebuilding, quickly

With your screenshot as reference: drag apps from the Applications folder into position, drag folders to the right side of the divider, then set size and auto-hide in System Settings → Desktop & Dock. Ten minutes, and you're back — minus the cruft you didn't miss.

Set it up better than before

A reset is the perfect moment to be deliberate about what earns a Dock slot. Our guide to the best Dock settings is the checklist for the rebuild.