Run iTunes without it being in the dock

Question

I'm trying to keep my dock simple - just Chrome, MacVim, and the terminal. Is there a way to run iTunes without it being in the dock (i.e. just show the icon in the menu bar)?

Answer 1

The only way for an application to not appear in the dock (while also keeping the menu bar) is for the developers to place that functionality into it. I don't use my dock as a launcher, using Butler instead (which is a dockless application, btw).

You might try backing up a step and asking why you want to remove the iTunes from the dock and see if there's another solution. For example, I often listen to tunes on my iPhone rather than iTunes. If it's to keep the dock clean, try a different launcher than the dock and hide the dock instead.

Answer 2

From HERE. I have not personally tried it with iTunes, but it does work with some applications.

If you'd like to have an application running, but without a dock icon, there's a 
way achieve this by modifying the application's plist file.

Open a terminal session, and first navigate to the "Contents" folder of the 
application you'd like to modify (note - you may want to make a backup of the app 
first, especially if it's one of the Apple-installed applications). This example 
uses Key Caps:

cd 'Applications/Utilities/iTunes.app/Contents/'

Now, edit the Info.plist file:

vi Info.plist

You can use vi, pico, or emacs to do the editing. 

Just before the closing Just before the closing </dict> tag, add

<key>NSBGOnly</key>

<string>1</string>

Save the edited Info.plist, then launch iTunes from the GUI
(your application foler). If your edit was successful, you should see iTunes,
but no icon in the dock.

Answer 3

Two things come close: you can (in Finder) select the iTunes application and 'get info', then paste a new icon over the icon (at top of the info window). The trick is, you use a selected patch of your desktop background picture as the icon (open the desktop picture in Preview, select a patch and copy). Or, to put items in the dock that don't take up space until you click them, but are always easy to locate without navigating folders, make a folder and put aliases of applications and such into it. Then, drag the folder to the dock, where a single click on the icon of the folder will show all the contents.