Dockbars

A hidden pocket for your Dock.

Push your pointer to the edge of the screen and a Liquid Glass panel slides out — your apps, files, and snippets, one flick away. It extends the Dock. It never replaces it.

Download the latest DMG · Website

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What is it?

Dockbars is a native macOS menu-bar app that adds a hidden, hover-activated pocket next to your Dock. Move the pointer to the corner beside the Dock and a translucent panel of your favourite apps, files, folders, websites, Shortcuts, scripts, and text snippets slides out. Click to open, drag to add or remove, glide away and it closes on its own.

It's designed to feel like a natural part of macOS — and to stay completely on your Mac.

Features

• Hidden pocket that opens on hover, beside the Dock or from a screen edge you choose.
• Multiple stashes — group items into named sets (Work, Dev, Games) and switch with ⌘1–9.
• Fuzzy search across every stash — just start typing; arrow keys + Return to open.
• Rich item types — apps, files, folders, websites, Apple Shortcuts, shell scripts, and text snippets, each opening the right way.
• Liquid Glass panel with System / Light / Dark themes, grid or list view, icon sizes 16–128.
• Favourites & pins, recently used, and a running-app indicator.
• Quick Peek — hover a file for a second to preview it with Quick Look.
• Widgets — clock, battery, recent Downloads; optional clipboard history; usage statistics.
• Multi-monitor aware and fullscreen aware (hover suspends over fullscreen apps).
• Global shortcut (default ⌥Space, fully customizable) and automation via a dockbars:// URL scheme, a CLI wrapper, and AppleScript.
• Profiles — switch appearance/layout presets from the menu bar.
• Export / import your configuration as JSON.
• English & Turkish localization (follows the system language).

Privacy

Dockbars is local-first and offline by design:

• No network code at all. Nothing to opt out of, because nothing is ever sent.
• No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics, no tracking.
• Stashes, clipboard history, and statistics never leave your Mac.
• Icons are resolved from the system at runtime; nothing is written to disk as image data.

Install

1. Download Dockbars-x.y.z.dmg from the latest release.
2. Open the DMG and drag Dockbars into Applications.
3. Launch it normally — the app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens with no Gatekeeper warning.
4. Grant Accessibility access when prompted: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. This is required so Dockbars can detect the pointer reaching the Dock edge and read the Dock's position. Dockbars requests no network access.

Requires macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, on Apple Silicon or Intel.

Using it

• Open: hover the corner beside the Dock, click the menu-bar icon, press ⌥Space, or run dockbars://open / dockbars open.
• Add items: drag from Finder/Launchpad/Dock into the panel, or use the header + menu (Files / URL / Shortcut / Script / Snippet).
• Remove: drag an item to the header trash, drag it out of the panel, or right-click → Remove.
• Reorder: drag an item onto another within a stash.
• Search / keyboard: move into the open panel, then type to fuzzy-search; ↑↓ to move, Return to open, Esc to clear/close, ⌘1–9 to switch stashes.
• Right-click the menu-bar icon for Settings, Profiles, Tutorial, and Quit.

Automation

# URL scheme
open "dockbars://open"              # open the pocket
open "dockbars://open?stash=Work"   # select "Work" and open
open "dockbars://toggle"            # toggle

# CLI (install scripts/dockbars into your PATH)
dockbars open
dockbars open Work
dockbars toggle

-- AppleScript, via the URL scheme
do shell script "open 'dockbars://open?stash=Work'"

Build from source

Requires Xcode 26+ and XcodeGen (brew install xcodegen).

xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -project Dockbars.xcodeproj -scheme Dockbars -configuration Debug build
xcodebuild -project Dockbars.xcodeproj -scheme Dockbars -destination 'platform=macOS' test

Package a DMG

./scripts/make-dmg.sh          # signs with your Apple Development identity + builds the DMG

Notarize for distribution

For a Gatekeeper-clean build you need a Developer ID Application certificate and a notarytool profile. scripts/notarize.sh then archives → exports → notarizes → staples; see the script header for the one-time credential setup.

Architecture

MVVM with an AppKit coordinator bridging into SwiftUI via NSHostingView. AppState is the single source of truth.

Dockbars/
├── App/         main, AppDelegate (coordinator), AppState
├── Core/
│   ├── DockObserver/    Dock position/size/autohide detection + pure geometry
│   ├── HoverEngine/     global mouse monitor, hotkey, running/fullscreen/clipboard monitors
│   ├── PanelController/ non-activating NSPanel lifecycle + spring animation
│   └── Persistence/     SwiftData models, settings, profiles, JSON import/export
├── Features/    PocketPanel · Settings · MenuBar · Onboarding
├── Utilities/   icons, launcher, fuzzy match, shortcuts, layout, localization
├── Resources/   en.lproj / tr.lproj
└── Tests/       DockGeometry · HoverDebouncer · FuzzyMatch · PanelLayout · ConfigCodec

Key decisions: a non-activating borderless NSPanel that never steals focus; an allocation-free hover hot path (a single cached rect test — idle CPU ≈ 0%, RAM in the tens of MB); App Sandbox intentionally disabled because global mouse monitoring and Dock inspection require Accessibility; zero third-party dependencies.

Roadmap

Phases 1–4 are implemented. Planned next: Sparkle auto-update (opt-in; would be the app's only network use) and a fuller String Catalog localization pass.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 © 2026 Mehmet Efe Aytaş.

Dockbars is free software: you may use, study, share, and modify it. If you distribute a modified version, it must also be released under the GPLv3.