How to Show Your Next Meeting in Your Mac's Dock

A minute before a call, most Macs go through the same routine. You open Calendar, find the event, scroll the notes for the link, click it and hope it's the right one. The meeting is already on your Mac. It just isn't somewhere you can glance at quickly.

Why Apple's Up Next widget doesn't help here

The closest built-in option is Apple's Calendar Up Next widget, which lives only in Notification Center or on the desktop (hora Calendar). In macOS Tahoe you add desktop widgets by Control-clicking the wallpaper, choosing Edit Widgets, then dragging a widget into place (RottenWifi). That widget is read-only. Clicking an event just opens the Calendar app, and you can't join a meeting from the widget itself (hora Calendar).

For calendar details in the Dock, you're looking at third-party apps, and there are several. docktor's Calendar widget reads Apple Calendar through EventKit, shows the next event with a live countdown and can optionally open the meeting link when the countdown ends (docktor). docktor lists Accessibility (Dock position and window metadata) as required, and Calendar (Apple Calendar events via EventKit) as optional (docktor). Dockspace has a calendar widget showing the next event's title, a countdown such as "in 20 min" and a calendar-color dot. You enable the widget in Preferences, then grant Calendar access when macOS prompts (Dockspace).

This guide covers Moor's version, the Next Event widget.

Add the Next Event widget

What you need

• macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. That's Moor's stated requirement.
• A Moor dock on screen. Your active profile has to be set to Moor only or Both (see Profiles).
• Calendar access. Next Event needs it, and Moor asks for it when you add or click the widget. Every Moor permission is optional and switches on specific features. Accessibility is a separate one Moor uses for app badges, minimized windows and jumping to windows. Screen Recording is only for window previews.

Step by step

1. Press Control-Option-E, or click Moor's menu bar icon (the little boat) and choose Edit Docks. The icons start to wiggle and a toolbar appears above the dock.
2. Choose Add in the toolbar and pick Next Event.
3. Drag the widget to where you want it.
4. When macOS asks if Moor can access your calendars, allow it.
5. While you're still in edit mode, click the widget to change its size or settings. Most widgets come in icon, wide and extra wide sizes.
6. Press Done, or press Control-Option-E again.

If you'd rather use Settings, open Settings → Docks, pick the dock, then use Items → Add Widget. Full details are on the Widgets docs page.

About the Join button

Moor's documentation says Next Event shows "your next meeting, with a Join button for video calls." That is all it says. It doesn't list which meeting services the button recognizes or how it finds a meeting link, so this guide won't guess at either.

For comparison, some menu-bar apps do document this. MeetingBar, for example, detects meeting links from calendar events and supports more than 50 services, including Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex and Discord (MeetingBar on GitHub).

Tips and tricks

Meeting mode kicks in when Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Slack, WhatsApp, Discord or a browser (for Meet) has used a microphone for a few seconds. Hiding revenue while screen sharing covers the revenue side of that in more detail.

If you work on several monitors, a dock on every monitor explains how to place docks on each display.

Do you still need another meeting app?

Maybe not. That depends on what your current app does that a Dock widget doesn't. Here's how a selection of Dock add-ons and menu-bar apps compare, based on what each one or its reviewers publish. It isn't a complete list, and where a detail isn't listed, check the app's own site.

Keep a menu-bar app if your Mac can't run macOS 26, or if you rely on a meeting service that your current app documents support for. Moving to a Dock widget makes sense if your menu bar is crowded or icons hide behind the notch, or if you already use a Moor dock and want one less app running. You can also run both.

Troubleshooting

• The widget shows no events. Open Moor's Settings → Permissions, which lists every permission Moor uses, and check Calendar. If it's off, choose Turn On…. If you missed the macOS prompt, you can also allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars (Poliuk/join describes the same path for menu-bar calendar apps).
• The widget says Set Up. Click it, or press Control-Option-E and then click it, to finish its settings.
• No Moor dock on screen. The active profile is set to Apple's Dock. Change it to Moor only or Both in Settings → Profiles.

Next steps

Add Next Event now, then turn on Meeting mode in Settings → Automation → During calls so your dock goes quiet on its own when a call starts. The Automation docs explain the rest of the call settings.

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