How to hide the dock on your Mac computer in 2 different ways, to get rid of the application icons on your screen

You can hide the dock on your Mac computer to get rid of the application icons that appear along the bottom of your screen.
It’s easy to hide your dock in System Preferences, or by using a keyboard shortcut.
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The dock on a Mac computer allows you to select applications for quick access along the bottom of your screen.

From web browsers to favorites such as Pages and iTunes, you can customize your dock to ensure you can open anything quickly and easily.

While customizability and ease of access is beneficial, the dock can also limit your screen space and at times, functionality.

Fortunately, it’s possible to hide the dock on your Mac computer.

Here's how to do it.

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How to hide the dock on your Mac using System Preferences

1. Click on the Apple symbol in the upper left corner.

2. Scroll down and click on System Preferences.

3. Click on Dock.

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Foto: Click on Dock in System Preferences.sourceRyan Ariano/Business Insider

4. Check the box next to "Automatically hide and show the Dock."

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Foto: Make sure the box for hiding the dock is checked.sourceRyan Ariano/Business Insider

The dock will now disappear. To access it, move your cursor to wherever you've put the dock - either the bottom of the screen by default, or one of the sides if you've moved it.

How to hide the dock on your Mac using a keyboard shortcut

You can also hide your dock by pressing this keyboard shortcut - Command(⌘)+Option+D.

You can then bring your dock back up by moving your cursor to where your dock was, or again pressing Command(⌘)+Option+D.