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I'm wondering if there's a way to disable the dashboard in Mountain Lion. I never use it and I think it's consuming processor and memory powers.

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  • 1
    Look in Activity Monitor to see how much CPU and memory it uses, I expect that it will be negligible if you have added no widgets.
    – mmmmmm
    Jun 12, 2013 at 13:54

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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With macOS 10.10 Yosemite or later, you can go to
System Preferences → Mission Control and switch Dashboard to Off.

                                                      

On any OS with Dashboard, you can disable it through Terminal with the following command:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES && killall Dock

It can be re-enabled with:

defaults delete com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled && killall Dock
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    thanks! I like the idea of the dashboard but the widgets available are absolutely terrible.
    – connorbode
    Apr 21, 2014 at 14:18
  • Is there a command to automate it in Yosemite?
    – Allen Bargi
    Jul 28, 2014 at 15:46
  • @Allen Automate what exactly? mcx-disabled still works in Yosemite DP4
    – grg ♦
    Jul 28, 2014 at 15:49
  • It does not work for me on 10.10 Beta. Actually some other defaults write commands does not work for me either.
    – Allen Bargi
    Jul 29, 2014 at 6:04
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If you don't want to use Dashboard at all, free Apps are available to disable & enable (if you wish to revert) it including:

EDIT

Alternatively see also this Youtube tutorial published on August 9th 2013 entitled "Removing the Dashboard (MacMost Now 902)"

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Or you could just uncheck the 'Show Dashboard as a Space' checkbox in the Mission Control settings

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    This doesn't disable dashboard.
    – revolver
    Jun 10, 2013 at 3:54
  • Just what I wanted, as I was always accidentally moving to the dashboard when switching spaces.
    – Jarrod Dixon
    Apr 7, 2014 at 5:47
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No hacks/apps or terminals needed.

Before you start you can Launch Activity Monitor and filter by dashboard to see this work.

Remove all dashboard items and see that the dashboard process disappears. Add them again and all is back to normal. And then use Greg's answer to remove it from Spaces.

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  • No, that wouldn't work because the LaunchDaemons are still active, and rebooting will only bring it back.
    – MarcusJ
    Oct 29, 2013 at 21:15
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To permanently disable Dashboard

  1. open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

  2. enter these commands, authenticate when prompted:

    defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES; killall Dock
sudo mkdir /System/Library/LaunchDaemons\ (disabled)
sudo launchctl unload -w com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch.plist
sudo mv /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch.plist \
        /System/Library/LaunchDaemons\ (disabled)/
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