Editing Dock (macOS) (section)

{{Short description|Graphical user interface feature by Apple}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2013}}
{{Infobox software
| name = Dock
| screenshot =
| caption =
| developer = [[Apple Inc.]]
| released = {{start date and age|2000}}
| service_name     = Dock.app
| operating system = [[macOS]]
| genre            = [[Taskbar]]
}}

The '''Dock''' is a prominent feature of the [[graphical user interface]] of [[macOS]]. It is used to launch applications and to switch between running applications. The Dock is also a prominent feature of macOS's predecessor [[NeXTSTEP]] and [[OPENSTEP]] operating systems. The earliest known implementations of a dock are found in operating systems such as [[RISC OS]] and NeXTSTEP. [[iOS]] has its own version of the Dock for the [[iPhone]] and [[iPod Touch]], as does [[iPadOS]] for the [[iPad]].

Apple applied for a US patent for the design of the Dock in 1999 and was granted [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,434,177.PN.&OS=PN/7,434,177&RS=PN/7,434,177: the patent] in October 2008, nearly a decade later.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/08/apple_patents_osx_dock/|title=Apple patents OS X Dock|first=Austin|last=Modine|date=8 October 2008|work=[[The Register]]|access-date=2017-08-08}}</ref> Any application can be [[drag and drop|dragged and dropped]] onto the Dock to add it to the dock, and any application can be dragged from the dock to remove it, except for [[Finder (software)|Finder]] and [[trash (computing)|Trash]], which are permanent fixtures as the leftmost and rightmost items (or highest and lowest items if the Dock is vertically oriented), respectively. Part of the macOS [[Core Services]], {{mono|Dock.app}} is located at {{mono|/System/Library/CoreServices/}}.