Mac: Organizing & Decluttering Your Desktop Dock

If you’re anything like me, a cluttered desktop drives you crazy. I can’t stand seeing files and icons everywhere, so I decided to clean things up. The first place I started was the Dock, because I had icons spread all across it.

Step 1: Create folders for your apps
In the Applications folder, I made new folders based on the types of apps I use. My categories were Media, Browsers, Microsoft Office, Creative Suite, and Tools. Then I created aliases for each app and placed them in the right folder.

Some examples:

Media: iTunes, FaceTime, Spotify, Image Capture
Browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari
Microsoft Office: Word, Outlook, Excel
Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator
Tools: Grab, Calculator, Evernote, Jing

Step 2: Add the folders to your Dock
Once the folders were ready, I dragged each one from Finder to the right side of the Dock, near the trash. Be careful not to drop them in the trash.

Step 3: Choose how the folder displays
Right-click the new folder icon in the Dock to choose how it looks. You can pick Fan, Grid, List, or Automatic. I prefer Grid because it makes each app easy to spot.

At first, though, the Dock looked messy again. Each folder showed a stack of app icons, and it made things feel cluttered. To fix that, I created my own simple icons for each category.

Step 4: Create and apply custom icons
I designed my icons as PNG files so they would have transparent backgrounds. Then I used an online tool called iConvert Icons to convert the PNG files into ICNS files.

Next, I went to Finder > Applications, found the category folders I created earlier, right-clicked each one, and selected Get Info.

Open your new ICNS file, copy the icon (Command+C), click the small blue folder icon at the top-left of the Get Info window, and paste (Command+V). Your Mac may ask for your password when you change the icon.

Once the icon is replaced, close the window. Your new icon should now appear in Finder and in the Dock. If it does not show correctly in the Dock, right-click the folder in the Dock and select Folder under “Display As” instead of Stack.

And voilà — a clean, organized Dock without the clutter.