The top five Dock keyboard shortcuts, in no particular order, as culled from MacDailyNews users’ emails and Reader Feedback sections are:
– Click-hold on icons in the Dock (or Control-click) to bring up contextual menus. Hold down the Option key with menus open to see additional options – for instance, Force Quit in application’s Dock context menu.
– Option + Command + clicking on an application in the Dock will select that application and hide all others.
– Command + Tab switches between applications. Command + Tab + Shift reverses direction. Hold Command and click H to hide the application or Q to quit it while traversing the Dock.
– Hold Shift and drag the Dock divider to move the Dock to up, down, or to the right of the screen.
Hold Option and drag the Dock separator (or just drag it without Option) to force the dock to resize.
– Control-click on the Dock divider to bring up Dock options and preferences.
Have others? Let us all know below in this article’s Reader Feedback section.
option + command + clicking on the desktop (not the finder icon) hides all applications.
option+command +click on the finder icon hides all applications and brings up a new finder window
command + click on an icon in the dock shows that icon in the finder.
Dragging a document icon to the dock while holding the option key allows you to select an application to open that document without accidentally docking the document.
Command-Option drag a document onto an application in the dock. Applications that normally would not attempt to open that particular type of document will be forced to try.
option dragging the icon of a running app will add it to the dock where you drop it…
command+option+D : toggles hide/show the Dock
Press Control + D to navigate the dock with the arrow keys, including inactive apps or folders. Then press Enter or Return to activate/open the item
Does Kai’s trick of “Press Control + D to navigate the dock with the arrow keys, including inactive apps or folders. Then press Enter or Return to activate/open the item” work for anyone? It doesn’t for me.
Control + F3 works according to http://lifehacker.com/321595/access-the-dock-and-menu-bar-from-your-keyboard and it is working for me.
Frank, Kai’s trick doesn’t work for me either: Mac OS X 10.2.4 running on a PowerBook G4/400 with an additional 20″ monitor attached.
>System Preferences >Keyboard >Full Keyboard Access >Press Ctrl with: letter keys
Just a guess as to why Kai’s tip might not be working for you…
wondering if anyone knows how to permanently hide the dock so that it doesn’t pop up if the mouse ventures into its area. this is an annoyance in many cases with programs like photoshop. If you know how to bring it up (cmd, opt, d) it would be nice not to have it “accidentally” jump up when not wanted. Any shareware?
Command+Option+(8) to turn on zooming. Then Command+Option+(+) or Command+Option+(-) to zoom in and out on any application anytime. Then Command+Option+(8) to turn off zooming.
Sorry, but none of these are keyboard shortcuts. These are the top five something else, but not shortcuts… it’s not a keyboard shortcut if part of the operation involves clicking. That’s a pretty important point, because the entire reason to have keyboard shortcuts is to allow the user to perform tasks *without* using the mouse. This is equivalent to posting a list of the top five vegetarian recipes, and each item includes ground beef as an ingredient.
@kai, for example, has provided a real keyboard shortcut. I would add that pressing the arrow key away from the edge opens up the options for that particular item, and can be navigated via they keyboard.