Separate Dock setups for work and home on your Mac

Why you keep rebuilding your Dock

At work you want Xcode, Slack, Figma and a Downloads stack. In the evening you want Music, Photos and Messages, and none of the work apps staring back at you. On a stock Mac that means dragging icons in and out every day, because macOS still has no native Dock profiles feature. You get one Dock, and its look and behavior (size, magnification, position, auto-hide) are all set in System Settings → Desktop & Dock.

This guide is about setting things up once. You save each context as a whole Dock setup, then switch with a keystroke instead of moving icons around.

Doing it yourself, and the apps built for it

The Dock keeps its pinned apps in a persistent-apps array and its folders and stacks in persistent-others, both stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist. Some third-party guides, such as this ShortcutDock blog post, walk through backing up and restoring that file from Terminal. Keep in mind that this comes from blogs and community forums, not Apple documentation, and the research behind this guide doesn't confirm those commands on macOS 26. The same post also notes that this preferences domain holds hot corners and Mission Control settings too, so you'd be swapping more than your icons. If you experiment, make a copy of the file first.

Full disclosure: this guide is published on moorapp.com by Bayou Applications LLC, the company that makes Moor. Several other apps also exist specifically to save and switch Dock layouts:

• Dockset saves multiple Dock configurations and switches with keyboard shortcuts, the menu bar, trackpad swipes, ⌘-scroll or Focus modes. It requires macOS 13 or later and says switching doesn't affect open apps or windows.
• DockFlow saves Dock presets with custom hotkeys and includes CLI tools and Shortcuts integration. Its developer says it supports macOS 13.5 and later and needs no special permissions, because it doesn't replace the native Dock.
• Modoki applies Dock layouts automatically when your Focus mode changes, or manually.
• DockIt Space offers multiple Dock profiles with one-click switching, listed as a $10 one-time purchase.
• DockProfiles and Dockfinity are free apps for saving and switching Dock layouts.

Prices and system requirements can change, so check each app's own site. The rest of this guide covers how Moor does it.

Set up work and home profiles in Moor

In Moor, a profile is a whole Dock setup: which apps and folders are in Apple's Dock and how it looks, which Moor docks are on screen, and whether Apple's Dock shows at all. Moor saves your original Dock before it changes anything, so you can always go back.

Every profile has a Dock mode:

Here's how to build two profiles:

1. Set up your Dock the way you want it for work.
2. Click the Moor icon in the menu bar and choose Manage Profiles → Save Current Dock as New Profile…. Name it "Work".
3. Rearrange the Dock for home, then save it the same way as "Home".
4. Open Settings → Profiles and give each profile an icon and a color. They show in the menu bar and the picker.
5. In the same pane, set each profile's mode. For example, you could keep Home on Apple's Dock and set Work to Moor only, with a dock for your calendar and sales widgets.
6. Switch between them a few times to check that each one looks right.

To change the Work setup later, switch to Work, adjust the Dock, then choose Manage Profiles → Update "Work" from Current Dock. In Settings → Profiles, Pull from Current Dock does the same for any profile.

Switch with a shortcut, a picker or a swipe

With Work as profile 1 and Home as profile 2, Control-Option-1 and Control-Option-2 are all you need. Control-Option-` flips between your last two profiles. To give a profile its own key combination, open Settings → Shortcuts, click its row and press the new keys. If you switch by accident, Undo puts the Dock back exactly as it was.

Tips and tricks

Let your monitors do the switching

If "work" means a desk with external displays, you can skip the shortcut entirely. Arrange your displays the way you use them, go to Settings → Automation → Monitor setups, choose Add Current Setup and pick Work. Do the same with just the laptop screen for Home. Moor switches when you plug in or unplug. If you use several screens, a dock on every monitor works well with this.

Tie it to a Focus

1. Open Shortcuts → Automation → New Automation → Focus.
2. Pick your Work Focus, choose When Turning On, and set Run Immediately.
3. Add Switch Moor Profile and choose Work.

To switch back, set a profile in Settings → Automation → When Focus turns off.

Ideas for good profiles

• Developers: a Work profile set to Moor only, with Xcode, Terminal and the Agents widget, so you can see which coding agent needs you.
• Store owners: put the Shopify or Stripe widget in Work and leave it out of Home.
• Launchers: the Alfred workflow and the Stream Deck plugin's Switch to Profile key also switch profiles. See Automation.

Suggested apps and getting back

If apps you didn't pin keep showing up in Apple's Dock, check Show suggested and recent apps in Dock in System Settings → Desktop & Dock. To get your original Dock back, choose Manage Profiles → Restore Original Dock… or go to Settings → Advanced → Your Dock. Quitting Moor also brings Apple's Dock back, and your profiles are kept.

Next steps

Save your current Dock as "Work" today, build a "Home" version tonight, and try Control-Option-1 and Control-Option-2. Once that feels natural, add a monitor setup so the switch happens on its own. The full reference is in the Profiles documentation.

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