ApexDock/ docs
Getting Started

Quickstart

Five minutes to a working ApexDock — pin some apps, set up a workspace, install the CLI.

Once you've installed ApexDock, this walks you through the bare minimum to feel productive. We'll skip permissions, licensing, and the assistant — those have their own pages.

1. Pin a few apps to the bar

Drag any .app from Finder onto the empty area of the bar. It pins to the left of the section separator (the small vertical pill). Drag pinned icons left/right to reorder them.

To unpin: right-click the icon → Unpin.

The right side of the separator shows running unpinned apps. Click any icon to bring its windows forward.

2. Hide the macOS Dock

On a fresh install, ApexDock turns Hide macOS Dock on for you during onboarding — if you've used ApexDock before, your previous choice is preserved. To change it, open Settings → Bar (or right-click empty bar space → Settings) and toggle Hide macOS Dock. ApexDock parks the Dock on the right edge with auto-hide and a near-infinite reveal delay; on quit, your original Dock preferences come back.

3. Create your first workspace

A workspace is a named subset of apps with its own pinned set, folders, focus allowlist, and accent color. Useful when you want a clean "Writing" bar without your "Work" tools peeking through.

  1. Right-click empty bar space → Workspaces… → + New Workspace.
  2. Name it "Work" (or whatever).
  3. Pick an accent color.
  4. Drag any apps you want active in this workspace into the workspace's pinned set.

Switch workspaces from the workspaces button on the system tray (or via apexdock workspace switch <name>).

4. Install the command-line interface

bash
# in Settings → Integrations, click "Install CLI"
# or symlink manually:
sudo ln -sf /Applications/ApexDock.app/Contents/Resources/bin/apexdock /usr/local/bin/apexdock

Now you can drive the bar from any shell:

bash
apexdock workspace switch Work
apexdock app focus com.apple.Safari
apexdock palette show
apexdock widget upsert --id cpu --symbol cpu --label 42% --tint "#FF8800"

5. Open the command palette

Press ⌘K. Type a workspace name, an app name, a settings tab, or a bar action — fuzzy match drops the top hit at the top, hit Return to run it.

If you have an Anthropic or OpenAI key configured (Settings → Assistant), the palette can route natural-language queries through the model — "switch to Work and open Safari" compiles to two intents and runs them.

6. Try a YAML widget

The fastest way to add something to the bar is a YAML widget. Create one widget file:

bash
mkdir -p "$HOME/Library/Application Support/ApexDock/widgets"
$EDITOR "$HOME/Library/Application Support/ApexDock/widgets/clock.yml"

Paste:

yaml
id: clock
command: "date +%H:%M"
interval: 30
symbol: clock
tooltip: "System clock"
order: 10

Save. The bar notices the file the moment it lands and starts ticking the clock. No relaunch needed.

For richer widgets — sparklines, hover popovers, click actions — see Widget schema.

What to read next

  • Concepts — how the bar is structured (zones, popovers, workspaces, hotkeys)
  • Settings — every toggle, slider, and dropdown
  • Widget schema — build any tray cell or popover
  • Control API — drive ApexDock from Raycast, Alfred, Shortcuts, or any script