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Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher Desktop
Warning / Disclaimer:
This trick relies on what is probably a bug to work, and may cause problems depending on what target applications are doing at the time method is applied. The system will even provide a warning to that effect when you try to implement this hint. Proceed at your own risk...

If you have ever been in a situation where you had an application running which you did not wish to continually have to "Tab" past in the ⌘-tab application switcher, it can be removed by simply renaming it while it is running, then restarting the Dock (see below for more on how to do that). The final (important) step is to immediately change the program's name back to what it originally was.

The program will no longer appear in the application switcher nor the Dock. If the application is a permanent item in the Dock, its icon will remain, but the triangle indicating active applications will be absent. Clicking the Docked application's icon will activate the app normally, but the contextual menu will be empty. Interestingly, windows belonging to the application still appear in Exposé.

Notes:
  • The Dock can be restarted using Activity Monitor (in /Applications/Utilities), AppleScript (tell application "Dock" to quit), or various commands using Terminal (also in Utilities; killall Dock).
  • For obvious reasons, it will require Admin access to use this on programs in the global Applications folder, although I suppose a user could, in many cases, run and work on copies.
  • To be more conservative, it may help to kill -STOP the process for the interval that the application's name is altered (ie. kill -STOP pid and kill -CONT pid to resume, where pid is the process ID of the program being skipped)
  • The Finder seems to be immune to the effects of this trick.
[robg adds: Bravely, I tested this one (using a non-critical app) on both 10.3.9 and 10.4.2, and it works. As noted in the warning above, though, it's potentially dangerous and not something I would recommend doing (unless you're willing to take the kill -STOP step as well).]
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Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher | 9 comments | Create New Account
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The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher
Authored by: jchapman on Aug 24, '05 11:21:37AM
There's an alternative method described here: macosxhints.com

[ Reply to This | # ]
Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher
Authored by: TvE on Aug 24, '05 11:23:35AM

Why not use LiteSwitch and drag'n'drop the I-do-not-want-to-see-this-application-in-the-app-switcher to the Exclude list



[ Reply to This | # ]
This works great.
Authored by: wgscott on Aug 24, '05 11:45:02AM

For X11.app, I have stuck these two lines in the plist file:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

The problem with this is that it removes X11 both from the dock (which I want) and the Menu bar (which I can live with, but not ideal).

It is great to have this less drastic option, and has inspired me to figure out a way to automate it.



[ Reply to This | # ]
This works great.
Authored by: Chas. Schoenfeld on Aug 24, '05 04:51:24PM
There already is a way to automate it:
Application: Dockless

[ Reply to This | # ]
This works great.
Authored by: wgscott on Aug 25, '05 10:54:42AM

It stopped working because the above syntax is new.



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Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher
Authored by: hamarkus on Aug 24, '05 08:20:05PM

a: Does a restart of the Dock or the app break this?
b: How does one activate the app, maybe a: answers this?

(I have one app I run all the time but only activate it about once a month, so that would be an ideal condidate.)



[ Reply to This | # ]
Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher
Authored by: DeltaTee on Aug 25, '05 08:50:23AM

Since it is no longer activatable through the dock or switching to it, you need to have some other method of activation. (Like an AppleScript or other hotkey.)



[ Reply to This | # ]
Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher
Authored by: jeanmichel on Dec 08, '07 05:44:35AM

Hi,

So i've just done this for a few apps which i always run but never "us" plus they have ugly icons, so hiding them was a great idea.

The hint above works great.

to answer hamarkus's questions: (from 2005)

1: A restart of neither dock or app breaks this
2: to access the app just locate it in Apps folder and open from there- if it is already open it will just bring it's window to the front.

Perhaps also of note is, as i still believe this to be a useful hint.

This works great under Leopard 10.5

As does the above mentioned "lightswitch" which allows all sorts of customisation to your app switcher. including moving, scaling, density, and removal of apps. - notably though, not the dock, hence why i used this hint.

hope this helps someone who comes across this hint in the future. . .



[ Reply to This | # ]
Remove a running application from the Dock and switcher
Authored by: jeanmichel on Dec 08, '07 05:45:39AM

Hi,

So i've just done this for a few apps which i always run but never "us" plus they have ugly icons, so hiding them was a great idea.

The hint above works great.

to answer hamarkus's questions: (from 2005)

1: A restart of neither dock or app breaks this
2: to access the app just locate it in Apps folder and open from there- if it is already open it will just bring it's window to the front.

Perhaps also of note is, as i still believe this to be a useful hint.

This works great under Leopard 10.5

As does the above mentioned "lightswitch" which allows all sorts of customisation to your app switcher. including moving, scaling, density, and removal of apps. - notably though, not the dock, hence why i used this hint.

hope this helps someone who comes across this hint in the future. . .



[ Reply to This | # ]