How can I hide the Dock in GNOME?

Question

I want to completely hide the dock in 17.10. Not just when overlapped but always. I have tried many extensions but nothing works and the most promising looking extension didn't even exist. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1290/disable-ubuntu-dock/

Note: My UI is only application windows and wallpaper. Nothing else shall be allowed to consume my precious pixels

Which is the most promising extension which did not even exist? — Videonauth, Nov 24 '17 at 07:32
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1290/disable-ubuntu-dock/ — pcnate, Nov 24 '17 at 07:34
You have tweaks installed? If yes check for ubuntu-dock extension it should be switched to on IRRC, try to turn that off. — Videonauth, Nov 24 '17 at 07:35
@Videonauth I think disabling Ubuntu Dock and Ubuntu appindicators extension in the default Ubuntu session is not so easy. Probably the safest option is to install vanilla GNOME session. — pomsky, Nov 24 '17 at 12:26
The safest possible alternative is probably installing and logging into vanilla GNOME session, Ubuntu Dock and Ubuntu appindicators are disabled by default there. — pomsky, Nov 24 '17 at 14:25
@pomsky I'm aware of the dock situation in the ubuntu-desktop package, i not even have traces of it on my machine. — Videonauth, Nov 24 '17 at 16:14

Dan · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-24T10:46:05.517

You can use the following extension to completely hide the Dock: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/

With this extension, you will be able to hide the dock but keep the dock-specific shortcuts available. To do that, enable the extension, go into its settings and do the following:

Enable the Intelligent autohide option under the Position and size tab.
Click on the "Gear" (⚙) icon next to the On/Off switch of the Intelligent autohide option for more settings.
In the new dialog window, disable both options, Autohide and Dodge Windows.
- Disabling autohide will keep the dock hidden even if you try to move your mouse to where the dock is.
- Disabling Dodge windows will keep the dock hidden even when it is not obstructed by any window.

As mentioned previously, this will not uninstall or disable the dock. But it will completely hide it. So it will not show on screen again unless at least one of the two previous options is enabled again.

The behaviour stays after disabling the extension. I bugged the dock appearance by changing background opacity (additional big semitransparent rectangle appeared), so I disabled the extension to try if any settings would be reset. After restarting without enabling it appeared that the default dash is autohiding as OP (and me) wanted. — Ctrl-C, Dec 04 '18 at 12:34

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited May 16 '20 at 20:23

18

In Ubuntu 17.10, 18.04, 18.10, 19.04 and 20.04 you can uninstall gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock using:

sudo apt remove gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock

This will remove the Ubuntu dock.

You will need to restart your GNOME session, you can do this by logging out and back in.

edited May 16 '20 at 20:23

Matt

3

answered May 15 '18 at 00:15

psiphi75

946
1
13
25

1

This is actually the cleanest approach imho. – binaryanomaly Jul 27 '18 at 06:14
4

Instead of logging out and back in, you can also press ALT+F2, type 'r', then press enter. (this reloads gnome-shell but keeps windows open!) – antoineMoPa Jul 23 '19 at 15:42
@antoineMoPa, the "press ALT+F2" approach works on an X11 session, but not in a Wayland session (and it probably never will). – psiphi75 Aug 08 '19 at 22:54

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 09 '18 at 09:02

17

You also could do it with dconf Editor which is pretty useful tool if you like tweaking your desktop.

So, in dconf Editor go to /org/gnome/shell/extensions/dash-to-dock and turn off simultaneously these three props:

autohide
dock-fixed
intellihide

And you have you dock visible only in overlay mode (the same as with extension recommended by @Dan).

answered Mar 09 '18 at 09:02

Roman Bekkiev

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3
10

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I'll have to try this. Do you know if I can retain superkey shortcuts even with the dock hidden? – pcnate Mar 09 '18 at 14:37
1

@pcnate, Don't really know but AFAIK shortcuts usually linked to commands, not to UI elements, so most likely it should work. – Roman Bekkiev Mar 16 '18 at 10:22
I can confirm that superkey shortcuts still works. – andersoyvind May 16 '18 at 07:24
4

It's probably better to use the gsettings tool for this:
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock autohide false && gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock dock-fixed false && gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock intellihide false (note: condensed on one line because it doesn't seem possible to do multi-line code blocks in comments)
– Desty May 18 '18 at 20:57
@Roman Your answer leads to the same behaviour as Ubuntu Gnome which I came to like. This is really nit-picking, but I really love the Linux-universe of distributions because it is so very diverse and customizable; totally orthogonal to the one-size-fits-all approach I consider MS is following (but maybe that's a misconception of mine). No matter what your preferences are in UI design and behaviour, you will find a Linux distribution to fit you. – Dohn Joe Aug 30 '18 at 08:12

score 13 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 22 '21 at 08:38

13

The best method to do this in Ubuntu 18.04 is by using gsettings. Why install extensions when there is a clean way of doing this?

Use the following command in terminal to auto-hide dock:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock dock-fixed false

Set these as well to hide it completely (except in Activities or Applications view):

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock dock-fixed false
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock intellihide false

Note: Most of the tweaks that you want to do with your UI can be done using gsettings.
Use man gsettings and explore more.

edited Oct 22 '21 at 08:38

ella

3

answered Feb 24 '19 at 09:41

Jithin Pavithran

1,035

It's been quite some time since I looked at this but I will check it out. – pcnate Feb 25 '19 at 16:30
2

This is the simplest & fastest way and should've been the accepted answer. – Angsuman Chakraborty Feb 08 '20 at 04:00
2

Still works in Ubuntu 21.10. – Jarno Mar 14 '22 at 15:23

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 09 '20 at 19:58

0

In Ubuntu 20.04 sudo apt remove gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock does not work very well. Dash to Dock can hide it very well unless it shows on overview screen with instructions up above. Additionally if you want to fully hide it you can use Dash to Dock extension again and in Launchers tab you can close all the applications.

And that's it.

edited May 09 '20 at 19:58

tinlyx

3,230

answered May 09 '20 at 16:26

Yakup Yazıcıoğlu

1

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 26 '20 at 16:32

I think I finally found an answer to this question that might make me not hate gnome shell: The dash to panel extension embeds the functionality of the dock in a gnome panel. So it works a lot like gnome 2 / cinnamon / mate.
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 27 '21 at 05:47

You can use the extension hide the Dock to hide the dock:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/

Enable the dash to dock extension and open the settings of dash to dock.

For parital hide:

Enable the intelligent autohide and click on the settings.
Disable the autohide. It will keep the dock hidden when the mouse is hovered over the dock.

To Hide it completely:

In the above step dock will be hidden but it will be visible on activites overview. If want to see the dock at all follow the below steps.

Go to the Launchers tab of the dash to dock setting.
Turn off everying you could find there because the list varies with versions.
Now dock have no icons to show so it will stay hidden.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 07 '23 at 13:11

I had a slightly different need. I wanted the dock keyboard bindings but felt that the dock took up too much space. And the “hide” feature still showed the dock when I was using hotkeys to switch between them.

Removing the dock with sudo apt remove gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock also removed the dock keybinds, it seemed.

What was an okay solution for my setup was to move the dock to the secondary monitor.

How can I hide the Dock in GNOME?

8 Answers8

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