Adding apps to the dock

By Dave Nason, 6 January, 2014

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Hi all. I'm pretty sure that you used to be able to add apps to the dock by going to the app in the applications folder and then pressing Command Shift T. However, in Mavericks, this now seems to be the toggle to show or hide the tab bar. For me anyway! Is there a new keyboard command for adding apps to the dock? I know the work-around is to open the app, then go to it in the dock, open the context menu and select "Keep in dock" in the options. But it would be nice to have the easy command that we had before. Thanks.

Options

Comments

By Tyler on Saturday, January 25, 2014 - 08:10

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
In the applications folder, navigate to the app with Voiceover and press VO comma to mark it for drag and drop. Then go to the dock and navigate to where you want to put it in relation to other apps. Once you've arrowed to a your desired placement position, to drop the app before it, press VO less than, or to drop the app after it, press VO greater than. If you don't like how the app is arranged, navigate to it and press command left arrow or command right arrow, to move it in the key's corresponding direction in the dock.

By Esther on Saturday, January 25, 2014 - 08:10

If you're using Mavericks add a press of the Control key to the shortcut you used in Mountain Lion, Lion, and Snow Leopard to put items selected in Finder into the dock. Control-Command-Shift-T is the new shortcut to use for this.

By KZ on Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - 08:10

Hi there,
I have downloaded Google Chrome. It has appeared in my Downloads folder but when I try to drag and drop it in the Dock it keeps saying that the drag and drop insertion has failed.
Do you have any idea why that is and what should I do?

By Dave Nason on Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - 08:10

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hi KZ. If the app is just in your downloads folder, you'll first want to install it by copying it across to the applications folder. From there the above steps should work.

When I drag and drop from the applications area to the dock, I get told the drop failed. Any further ideas?

thanks

Irene

By dan on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 08:10

SO, I don't know if this is the right way to do things but it's what I've done...
If the app is open on the mac it should show up on the dock. Navigate to the dock and select the app. Then hit vo-shift-m and arrow down to "options" in the sub-menu should be an option to "keep in dock" hit enter on this and it'll keep it in the dock even if the app is closed. I generally don't care what the order of the items on my dock are because I usually just start typing the name of the thing I need, but, I'm guessing from there you can probably rearrange the app if you need to.
Hope this helps!

By Chris on Monday, July 25, 2016 - 08:10

Press command option left and right arrow. VoiceOver will tell you that the currently selected app has been been moved to the left or right of the icon. For example, if I had mail and Safari to the right of Mail, pressing Command option left arrow on Safari would cause VoiceOver to swap the position of those two apps. It doesn't appear you can change the position of the Finder on the far left of the dock.