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I have a dual monitor setup with a MacBook Pro (Retina) 13" and 24" external Dell monitor (via DVI). I am using the MBP as the bottom monitor of the setup, and want to be able to use it primarily for full screen app tasks. This means I find it more convenient to put the dock on the top screen, displaying all the time. However, OS X only displays it on the very bottom screen.

I assume my goal ends up breaking Apple's mental model for how the dock (the dock attaching to a corner of the screen) works, which is why I haven't found a way to do this yet.

Any ideas on how to make this dream happen? I've attached a screenshot of the arrangement of the monitors (from the OS X Display system preferences).

My current monitor arrangement

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  • Is attaching the dock to the right or left side a option for you?
    – bjbk
    Oct 2, 2015 at 20:17
  • I much prefer my dock to be on the bottom. It could work on the left or right, but I find it counterintuitive (just my personal preference).
    – Rob
    Oct 2, 2015 at 20:34

3 Answers 3

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Someone showed me one solution: there's a sort of "shelf" created where the bottom monitor is narrower than the top. If you move your mouse on the top monitor until it hits that shelf, the dock will pop up to the top monitor. However, if you move your mouse to the bottom of the bottom screen the dock will move back there.

This should be sufficient for my problem, but I'm leaving this up in case other people have alternative answers (and if this will be helpful for someone else).

enter image description here

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I use 2 monitors with extended display from my Macbook. Looks like Mac is treating all displays combined as one.

To fix this frustrating problem for me, I've arranged the Macbook display on top of two external displays and bingo, that started showing the dock in one of the external displays as I'd expect. This way, even when you move the white bar to the top (Mac) to make it primary display, the dock remains at the bottom monitor (in this case it is the larger monitor).

Arrangement of my displays

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If you like to have your dock automatically hidden there's a problem with making it visible, to solve this try:

  1. Make top screen main screen as others suggested.
  2. Use cmd + option + d to toggle the dock on the top of the screen.
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