See Only Running Apps in the Mac Dock

On a normal Dock, a pinned app and a running app look almost identical — the same big icon, just a small dot beneath the ones that are open. That makes it easy to lose track of what's actually running in the background. Flip one hidden setting and the Dock shows only open apps, so its contents become a live, trustworthy read on what your Mac is doing right now.

Why the dot isn't enough

macOS marks running apps with a faint indicator dot under the icon, but on a full Dock of pinned shortcuts that dot is easy to miss. So a music player, a chat app, or a screen recorder can quietly keep running for hours after you thought you were done with it — draining battery, holding the microphone, or just adding to the pile of open windows.

When the Dock shows only running apps, that ambiguity disappears. If an icon is in the Dock, the app is open. If it isn't, it isn't. You can count what's running at a glance instead of squinting for dots.

Switch to the live view

The setting is static-only. Turning it on stops the Dock from drawing persistent pinned icons, leaving only apps that are currently open. Run this in Terminal (Applications → Utilities):

# Dock shows only open apps
defaults write com.apple.dock static-only -bool true
killall Dock

Now watch it work: open an app and it slides in; quit it and it slides out. Nothing lingers on screen that isn't actually alive. To return to the standard Dock with your pinned apps:

# Back to the normal Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock static-only -bool false
killall Dock

Your pinned apps aren't removed — they're just hidden while the setting is on, and they return in place when you switch it off. This is consistent across macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

Reading the live Dock

A few things make the live view even more useful once you're in it:

• Finder always appears because it's always running — treat it as the baseline, not a running "app" you forgot about.
• An icon you don't remember opening is worth a look. Right-click it to see its windows, or quit it right there if it's something you're done with.
• Pair it with Activity Monitor when a running app is using more than its share of CPU or energy — the Dock tells you what's open, Activity Monitor tells you how hard each one is working.

The habit this builds is quietly valuable: you start ending your day by glancing at a short Dock and quitting the two or three apps you forgot were still going. On a laptop that's real battery back, and it's a far better signal than a row of pinned icons that never changes no matter what your Mac is actually doing.

Dig deeper into what's running

Once the Dock shows you what's open, Activity Monitor shows you what it costs. See the Activity Monitor guide for Mac to read CPU, memory, and energy use for each app you spot in the Dock.