Stop the distracting Dock bounce on Mac

When you're heads-down on something, a Dock icon bouncing in the corner of your eye is exactly the kind of movement your attention can't ignore. One Terminal command switches the launch bounce off, so opening an app no longer tugs your focus away from what you were doing.

Why a bounce is so hard to ignore

Peripheral vision is tuned to catch motion — it's a reflex, not a choice. A static icon sitting in the Dock is easy to tune out; the same icon springing up and down grabs a slice of attention every time, even when you've launched that app a thousand times before. During focused work, each launch becomes a tiny interruption: your eyes flick down, register the movement, and flick back. It's small, but it adds up, and it's the opposite of what you want when you're trying to stay in flow.

The fix isn't to launch fewer apps — it's to remove the movement. With the bounce gone, an app opens quietly: the icon lights up its running indicator and the window appears, with nothing to pull your gaze.

Turn the bounce off

There's no switch for this in System Settings, so it's a one-line command. Open Terminal (Applications → Utilities, or search in Spotlight) and run:

# Stop the distracting launch bounce
defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool false
killall Dock

The Dock reloads instantly thanks to killall Dock. If you ever want it back, reverse the value:

# Restore the launch bounce
defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool true
killall Dock

This is the same on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia, and it sticks across restarts — set it once and the distraction is gone.

The other Dock motion worth taming

If the launch bounce was bugging you, a couple of other Dock animations probably are too, and they're all optional:

• Magnification — icons swelling as your pointer sweeps across the Dock is constant motion. Dock magnification on Mac shows how to turn it off or tune it down.
• The minimize effect — the genie animation is showy; switching to Scale is calmer and quicker. See change the Dock minimize effect on Mac.

Trim those alongside the bounce and the Dock becomes a still, quiet strip that only moves when you deliberately act on it.

Go quieter across the whole system

Dock animations are just the start. If motion anywhere on screen pulls your focus, turn off distracting animations on Mac covers the system-wide settings — including Reduce Motion — that make everything from window resizing to Space-switching calmer.