SIDEDOCK

A secondary Dock for the unused edges of your Mac.
Glass. Magnification. Auto-hide. Plaintext config.
No Accessibility. No Screen Recording.

The system Dock occupies one edge of one screen. Ultrawide and multi-display setups still leave a tall strip of unused space on the left or right. SIDEDOCK is a second Dock for that edge: pinned apps, recents, folders, and the same click-to-hide behavior you already know.

It is not a clone of Sidebar. It is the core Dock mechanic, written in Swift, auditable, and configured with a file you can keep in git.

Why it exists

Wide Macs waste the sides. Most third-party docks either become a widget board, or they ask for Accessibility and Screen Recording so they can draw live window previews.

SIDEDOCK stays a Dock:

• A vertical glass panel on the left or right of every display
• Apps you pin stay there whether they are running or not
• Hover magnification with cosine falloff, neighbors spreading the way Apple’s Dock does
• Auto-hide, revealed by moving the pointer to the edge
• A JSON file at ~/.config/sidedock/config.json that reloads live

If you want media controls, a calendar, or a window switcher, this is the wrong app. If you want the Dock on the side of an ultrawide, this is the one to build on.

Features

Pin apps	Stay on the dock when they are not running. Drag from Finder to add; drag to reorder.
Click like the Dock	Launch, focus, or hide the frontmost app.
Magnification	Hover enlarges the icon and pushes neighbors apart. Off, or 1.0–3.0.
Auto-hide	Approach the screen edge to reveal. Leave, and it springs away.
Recents	Unpinned apps you just used appear under a separator. Right-click to pin.
Folders	Drop a folder on the dock. Hover to peek inside; click an item to open it.
Always visible	Optional. macOS still will not shrink other windows around a third-party strip.
Menu bar extra	Settings, Open at Login, Recents, Reveal Config, Quit. The app itself stays out of the system Dock.
Launch at login	On by default the first time you run it. Turn it off from the menu bar or Settings.
Running indicators	Small dots for open apps, like the system Dock.

Full idea-to-code map, including what is still out: FEATURES.md.

Privacy

SIDEDOCK does not request:

• Accessibility
• Screen Recording
• Input Monitoring

Edge detection uses NSEvent mouse monitors only. Apps launch through NSWorkspace. Folder drops store a path plus a security-scoped bookmark so the same code can stay sandboxed later for the App Store.

There are no live window previews, and there will not be unless the project later takes Screen Recording on purpose. That is a product decision, not a missing checkbox.

Install

Download the DMG, drag the app into Applications, open it once. That is the whole setup.

1. Open SIDEDOCK.dmg.
2. Drag SIDEDOCK onto Applications.
3. Eject the disk image, then open SIDEDOCK from Applications.

On first launch the app:

• Lives in the menu bar (no icon in the system Dock)
• Writes ~/.config/sidedock/config.json if it is missing
• Turns Open at Login on so it comes back after restart

If you open it from the disk image instead of Applications, it asks to move itself there first. That keeps the login item pointed at a copy that still exists after you eject the installer.

macOS may ask you to confirm the first open (Control-click → Open) until the build is notarized with an Apple Developer ID. Same account you will use later for the App Store.

Build the DMG yourself

./scripts/make-dmg.sh

Output: dist/SIDEDOCK-1.0.0.dmg (and dist/SIDEDOCK.dmg). To sign with a Developer ID:

CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name" ./scripts/make-dmg.sh

Run from Xcode

Open MacSideDock.xcodeproj, select the MacSideDock scheme, and Run. Debug builds skip the move-to-Applications prompt and do not register a login item, so Xcode runs do not stick around after reboot.

Requirements

• macOS 26.5 or later
• Xcode 26 to build from source

App Store (later)

The DMG is the path for now. App Store submission needs an Apple Developer Program account, sandbox entitlements in MacSideDock/MacSideDock.entitlements, screenshots, and Product → Archive. Direct download stays unsandboxed so config, Finder drops, and login work without extra permissions.

Use

Move the pointer to the left (or right) edge of the screen. The dock slides in.

Action	Result
Click an app	Launch, focus, or hide if it is already frontmost
Drag an app from Finder	Pin it
Drag an icon	Reorder
Drop a folder	Pin it; hover to peek
Right-click an app	Open, Hide/Show, Show in Finder, Keep in Dock, Remove
Right-click the dock	Hiding, magnification, and position
Menu bar icon	Settings, login, recents, config, quit

Settings is a small grouped window: size, magnification, edge, auto-hide, recents, and login. Re-open it from the menu bar, or by clicking the app in Finder (it handles reopen by showing Settings).

Configure

Path: ~/.config/sidedock/config.json

Edits on disk are picked up live. Invalid JSON is ignored until it parses again; the last good config stays in memory.

{
  "autoHide": true,
  "edge": "left",
  "iconSize": 48,
  "lastMagnification": 1.8,
  "magnification": 1.8,
  "pinnedApps": [
    "com.apple.finder",
    "com.apple.Safari",
    "com.apple.mail",
    "com.apple.Notes",
    "com.apple.systempreferences"
  ],
  "pinnedFolders": [],
  "recentsLimit": 6,
  "reserveScreenSpace": false,
  "showRecents": true,
  "showRunningIndicators": true,
  "version": 3
}

Key	Values
edge	"left" or "right"
iconSize	24–96
magnification	1–3 (1 is off)
pinnedApps	Bundle IDs, or { "bundleIdentifier": "com.apple.Safari" }
recentsLimit	3–12
reserveScreenSpace	Always-visible mode; turns auto-hide off

Menu bar → Show Config in Finder if you do not want to hunt for the file.

Architecture

MacSideDockApp
└── AppDelegate
    ├── DockPanelManager          one NSPanel per display
    │   └── DockPanelController
    │       └── DockView          SwiftUI: icons, recents, folders, drop
    ├── StatusItemController      menu bar extra
    ├── RecentsStore
    └── DockConfigStore           ~/.config/sidedock/config.json

Folder	What lives there
Dock/	Panel, glass, magnification, auto-hide, hover, folder peek
Apps/	Launch, click/hide, recents, login item, folder bookmarks
Config/	JSON model and live reload
Preferences/	Settings window, menu bar, feature catalog

Magnification math is isolated in Dock/DockMagnification.swift. Reveal policy is isolated in Dock/DockRevealLogic.swift. Both are covered by tests in MacSideDockTests/.

Contribute

SIDEDOCK is open source because the Dock is personal, and the feel has to be right on real hardware. If you care about that, you should be able to read the code, change it, and ship a build the same afternoon.

Good first work:

• A real macOS app icon (the asset catalog is still empty)
• Photographs of the running app for this README
• A Homebrew cask
• Localization
• Magnification and hide-show feel on your display
• Tests around config, recents, and drop insertion

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request. Issues and PRs are welcome. The bar is native feel, not extra widgets.

Principles we will not casually reverse:

1. No Accessibility or Screen Recording for the core Dock.
2. Config stays a plaintext file a human can diff.
3. The app remains a Dock, not a sidebar of utilities.

Out of scope

• Live window previews
• Media controls
• Calendar
• Window snapping
• Window switcher

These were considered and left out of v1. See FEATURES.md.

License

MIT © Mohammad Rehan