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Is there an easy way to hide an application's dock icon? For example, I can't hide Iconfactory xScope dock icon. Most similar apps have an option to hide the dock icon, but I can't seem to find one in this app's preferences.

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4 Answers 4

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Try editing the app's plist (inside the .app package i.e xScope.app/Contents/Info.plist)

and add or edit the following entry:

<key>NSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

Because this hides the menu bars, it should be possible to create a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts for any functionality that you need the menus for.

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  • This hides the dock icon but also hides the app's menu bar which makes some features unusable (such as creating a new Guide line).
    – titaniumdecoy
    Commented Apr 8, 2011 at 21:49
  • @titanium There's no way to hide the dock icon without hiding the menu bar. This has been asked before on other sites, and no one's ever gotten past the menu bar problem.
    – Nathan Greenstein
    Commented Apr 9, 2011 at 0:15
  • I don't have a copy of xScope so I'm not aware of all the side effects of not accessing the menu, my solution has all the same effects of the Dock Dodger or Dockless solutions, because I believe they are more or less GUI's for the edits shown in this answer.
    – Nilloc
    Commented Apr 9, 2011 at 19:18
  • I'm marking your answer as accepted since I don't think there is a good solution to my question.
    – titaniumdecoy
    Commented Apr 9, 2011 at 19:53
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Plist files use a key/value format, declaring the type of the key. The correct code is:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>true</string>

Stick these in before the </dict> </plist> lines, and voilà. This works for me on High Sierra.

Some extra help for the less experienced.........

Apple, as usual, makes this sort of control over your own computer difficult when not impossible. Here's what you have to do:

  1. Make sure you are logged in as an Administrator.
  2. In Finder, under Applications, find the relevant app. Right-click > select "Show Package Contents" > select "Contents." You should now see the directory containing your app, which should include a file called info.plist.
  3. Double-click the .plist file. This should open the file in TextEdit.
  4. As soon as you try to do anything to the file, you will get a message saying "You don’t have permission to write to the folder that the file 'Info' is in" and offering to let you edit a duplicate. Click "Duplicate."
  5. Make the edit as above.
  6. Save the (duplicate) file to your desktop. Name it info.plist. (Be careful not to let Finder change the extension to .txt, or add "copy" to the name. If in doubt, uncheck "Hide extension" in the lower left of the Save window.)
  7. Copy this newly-edited file back to the "Contents" folder you found in Step 2.

N.B. I am skipping the ridiculous number of times you will have to enter your password.

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There are apps that let you hide any app's dock icon. The ones I've heard of are Dock Dodger and Dockless (both available for free).

Keep in mind that any of these apps will also hide an app's menu bars (, app, File, Edit, etc.). This is unavoidable, as best I can tell.
Note that xScope's menu bar app (on the right, with Spotlight) will stay.

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Edit Info.plist inside the .app (for example Xcode.app)
You can access contents of an App by
/SecondClick (RightClick)/Show Package Contents
for example Xcode.app/Contents/Info.plist

add this key: 

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

reference: I just updated a calendar App that had this dock problem, In the new version it is solved. I saved the older .app file and compared .plist in both versions of the same App.

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