How to Change Your Mac Dock's Look: Themes, Glass and Custom Themes

What macOS lets you change, and what it doesn't

Apple's Dock settings live in System Settings → Desktop & Dock. According to Apple, you get Size, Magnification, Position on screen, Minimize effect, the double-click title bar action, minimizing windows into the app icon, auto-hide, opening animations and indicators for open apps. That list has no theme picker.

macOS 26 Tahoe redrew the Dock in Liquid Glass. It also brought two appearance settings, and they're separate things:

• Icon & Widget Style (Tahoe 26). Find it at System Settings → Appearance → Icon & Widget Style, with Default, Dark, Clear and Tinted. It restyles Dock icons, desktop widgets and Home Screen-style surfaces together, as DockGroups explains.
• The Liquid Glass Clear or Tinted switch (Tahoe 26.1). This later setting, also in System Settings → Appearance, changes the Liquid Glass material, with Clear as the default. It doesn't restyle icons. OS X Daily found the difference very subtle in Light Mode and only slightly easier to see in Dark Mode, mostly in titlebar buttons.

Both apply to the whole system, not just the Dock.

You can also set Apple's icon size in Terminal with defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 36, then killall Dock. Skip that second command and the change does nothing. It's still a size, not a look. Names like "Glass" or "Midnight" come from Dock replacement apps, not from macOS.

In Moor, a theme sets how a dock looks: its material, tint, border, shadow, icon size, magnification and labels. Moor has seven built-in themes, and you can make your own. The full reference is in Themes.

Pick a built-in theme

Each dock has its own theme, so your main dock can use Glass while a slim side dock uses Terminal.

To switch themes:

1. Press Control-Option-E, or choose Edit Docks from Moor's menu bar icon.
2. Open the Theme menu in the toolbar above the dock.
3. Pick a theme. The dock changes right away, so try a few.
4. Press Done, or Control-Option-E again.

You can also open Settings → Docks, select the dock and set Theme there. That page shows a live preview of the dock on your own wallpaper.

Make your own theme

You start a custom theme from a copy of a built-in one.

1. Open Settings → Themes.
2. Select the built-in theme closest to what you want.
3. Choose Duplicate to Edit.
4. Make your changes. The preview at the top is a real dock using the theme on your wallpaper, so you see each change as you make it.
5. Go back to edit mode or Settings → Docks and give the new theme to any dock.

These are the controls:

Magnification range sets how far the growth spreads to the icons next to the one under your pointer. A small range at 1.4× looks calm. A wide range at 2.0× feels closest to the classic big Dock wave.

Share a theme with a link

To share a theme you made, select it in Settings → Themes and choose Copy Share Link. Whoever opens the link sees a preview at moorapp.com in light and dark, and Add to Moor saves a copy to their Settings → Themes. Their dock doesn't change until they pick the theme. The theme travels inside the link, so it never passes through Moor's server.

If you'd rather send a file, Export… saves the theme as a small file and Import… adds one. That works well for a team that wants the same company look on every Mac.

Deleted a theme by mistake? Delete… asks first and names the docks that use the theme, and those docks switch to Glass. Put Back, or Command-Z, brings the theme back. Its docks get it again unless you've picked a different look for them since.

Tips for a dock that matches your wallpaper or brand

• Match any wallpaper. Use Liquid Glass or Clear Glass with Tint from wallpaper. With several displays, each dock picks up the colors of its own screen.
• Brand colors for store owners and founders. Start from Paper or Midnight, set Material to Solid and enter your brand color as the Tint. Then give dark mode its own darker shade so the dock doesn't glare at night.
• A quiet dock for coding. Duplicate Terminal, set Labels to on hover and leave magnification at 1.0×. Raise Widget text size if you keep the Agents or CPU widgets in the dock and want to read them from across the desk.
• Designers who hate visual noise. Pair a Clear theme with Moor's icon styles. In Settings → Icons, choose Monochrome or Tinted to restyle every app icon at once (more on app icons). Icon styles only change apps. Folders, widgets and the Trash follow the theme.
• Carry the look to the menu bar. With Mast or Moor Bar turned on (Settings → Parts), both can Match a dock theme, and they follow your edits to that theme.
• Different looks for different docks. A Glass main dock and an Islands side dock look like separate tools, so you can tell them apart at a glance. The Docks page covers placing docks on other edges and displays.

Limits worth knowing

• The Islands theme always shows running apps in one scrolling row. Wrap to 2 rows only works with bar themes (details).
• With Reduce Motion on (System Settings → Accessibility → Display), magnified icons grow instantly instead of springing, and apps don't bounce.
• Themes only style Moor's docks. Apple's Dock keeps following your System Settings, and major macOS updates can reset Terminal tweaks to it, Appish notes.

Next steps

Pick a built-in theme in edit mode. Then duplicate it and change one thing at a time: material first, then tint, then magnification.

Moor has a free 14-day trial at moorapp.com.