Cannot change Dock size in System Preferences

[Rod]

Yesterday I was doing a few things on my wifes MBP 13" Running High Sierra and was unable to change either magnification or size of her dock from system prefs. Curious I had a look at my MBP Retina 13" and neither can I, although I can increase the magnification setting but i cannot change the dock size on either device using the slider in system prefs.
Anybody else have this issue because I cant find anything on the web about it.

 

[MacInWin]

Rod, I just tried it on my mid-1025, MBP 15" retina with HS 10.13.4 and in the System Preferences/Dock, the top slider is for Size. However, I can only make it enlarge to a certain size because of the number of items I have on the Dock. I can make it smaller, but not much larger. If you have a LOT on the Dock, you may be constrained on how big you can make it appear. All of the icons have to fit on the screen, so it will only allow expansion to the point where it's fully across the bottom.

 

[Rod]

Hi Jake, that's not how it works on my MBP. I have more icons that can be seen when I inside my dock but putting my cursor at either end makes it scroll sideways to reveal the ends. My wife's works the same way but the size is fixed and unlike mine the Magnification control does not work at all. It does magnify but I can't change the amount, either up or down.

 

[MacInWin]

This is how I am set up for the Dock. As I said, I can make the Dock shorter by moving to the left, but any to the right from where it is shown is ignored because of the number of icons. I've never seen it go off the edge. I have a dual monitor setup and if I move from the 15" MBP to the 27" monitor, I can make the icons larger, but when I move it back to the 15" screen, they go back to the size that fits all of them across the bottom. Nothing past the edge of the screen on either screen.

 

[Rod]

Hmm, well my settings are quite different but you can see from the pic the dock continues beyond the width of the screen on both sides. I tried turning Magnification off and found that the dock shrinks to a size where it fits within the confines of the screen like yours.
You can try this if you like. Tick the magnification box and i think you will find that the dock now exceeds the width of the screen, if its set large enough and you have enough icons.

 

[MacInWin]

Rod, nope, that didn't make any difference. All Magnification does is control the size the icons become if I move across them, as in your picture. But as soon as I leave the Dock by moving UP, the Dock shrinks back to fit across the bottom. It does "scroll" of a sort as I move to the ones forced off the screen by the magnification process, but if I move the cursor straight up, no scroll, all icons on the screen. If you turn magnification OFF, you'll see what I mean, I think. No scrolling with that off.

 

[Rod]

Sorry Jake, maybe you misunderstood it only scrolls sideways and my dock is hidden whereas I notice yours is not. For me this means that when I hover my cursor over the bottom of the screen the dock appears and magnifies the spot I'm on. All in all a very satisfactory situation for me. For example I know roughly where my browser icon is so when I place my cursor there the dock appears and the icons closest to the cursor are magnified. Works for me.
With my wife it is the same but as stated I cant increase either the size of her dock (same problem as me) OR the amount of magnification (unlike me).

 

[MacInWin]

I still think it's related to how many icons you have on the dock. Fewer icons give more room for enlargement, but all of the icons on the Dock must fit on the screen when the cursor is NOT in the Dock. With your setting of hiding the Dock, whenever you move away, the whole Dock disappears, but the bottom line still is that the entire dock has to fit across the bottom. Try turning off Magnification, or setting it all the way left on the slider, and you will see that when the Dock appears, all of the icons are visible, not scrolled off. Given that your wife's machine can't change size, I bet she has more icons on the Dock than you.

Bottom line, minus magnification, all icons HAVE to appear on the dock and the dock will autosize the icons down to fit if you have them too large. Eventually you can't make them any larger than the minimum and it looks like you can't change them in System Preferences. You CAN change them, but then the autosizing overrides the larger setting. If you want to test that, remove one or two and see if the limitations go away a bit. Or you can see the autosizing when you open an app and the icon moves to the Dock. Everything gets smaller to fit it all it, no matter what you have set. Your hiding of the dock is masking the action, but it's there under the magnification.

 

[Rod]

Aha! Ive worked it out. I unticked the "Automatically Hide and Show the Dock" box. I was then able to increase the magnification but the size is then controlled by the number of icons, they shrink to fit the width of the screen.
Ticking the box again retains the magnification size for hovering but the width although wider than the width of the screen seems limited to a maximum size. To test that I would have to remove several of the icons which i am loath to do because its my wifes computer and I'm happy with my settings the way they are.
So I tried logging in a Guest and with the limited number of icons on the default dock both size and magnification settings work as intended.
In the end it seems you are right. The size of the dock is limited by the number of icons.

 

[chscag]

Hey Rod:

The Dock is only supposed to be for those apps or folders that are most often used. It appears you have everything including the kitchen sink on your Dock. You might think about using Launchpad instead.

 

[MacInWin]

Glad you got it sorted out. One thought:

In the end it seems you are right.

Seems? SEEMS? You doubted?

Heh, good call, doubting. But on this one the blind squirrel strikes again!

 

[Rod]

Ha ha, yes I suppose I have a few too many on the dock but I am constantly changing them. All together I have 148 apps so the dock is just the tip of the iceberg. I use the Launcher all the time.

 

[Rod]

Glad you got it sorted out. One thought:

Seems? SEEMS? You doubted?

Heh, good call, doubting. But on this one the blind squirrel strikes again!

OK, I concede, one increase in hat size to you.

 

[MacInWin]

OK! I'm up to a size 2!

 

[ferrarr]

For the next time, there is a separator, on the right of the Dock, to separate Apps, from files/folders, you can click on the separator and scroll up or down to adjust the Dock size.

 

[pm-r]

Aha! Ive worked it out.

I'm a bit late here and I didn't notice if it was mentioned, but a quick way to resize the **** is to put the cursor/pointer over the tiny vertical dividing line towards the right end that's between the apps and folders/Trash and it should turn into a vertical arrow, and then just click and move the mouse up or down that should resize the Dock and contents.




- Patrick
======

 

[ferrarr]

I'm a bit late here and I didn't notice if it was mentioned, but a quick way to resize the **** is to put the cursor/pointer over the tiny vertical dividing line towards the right end that's between the apps and folders/Trash and it should turn into a vertical arrow, and then just click and move the mouse up or down that should resize the Dock and contents.




- Patrick
======

Haha, I beat you by 11 minutes... lol.

 

[Rod]

Hi Patrick, Bob just beat you to it but I didn't know that. Correct me if I'm wrong but this seems like new behavior. Either way its a great shortcut but will not make my Dock or contents any bigger than they already are. It does make them smaller. I wont pursue this any further because I'm happy with my setup as it is and the workaround I mentioned has enabled me to increase the level of magnification on hover on my wife's dock so my poor old eyes can easily discern the icons therein. The answer is apparent, we both have far too many icons on our docks.
Having said that, it is the way we work and causes no problems, the Launcher on the other hand is slow in comparison, when you have 4-5 pages of apps.
Perhapes our next devices will need to be 15" models.

 

[pm-r]

Hi Patrick, Bob just beat you to it but I didn't know that. Correct me if I'm wrong but this seems like new behavior.

Well sorry Bob, I guess one should refresh the forum page and take a quick update look before posting, and Rod, that "feature" has been around for ages, at least SL if not before, but odd that I had never seen it mentioned at any Mac site or in any Apple KB article.

the Launcher on the other hand is slow in comparison, when you have 4-5 pages of apps.

I have never used the Launcher or any Mission stuff and could never understand any reason for their existence.

PS: You can always just add the Applications folder or a modified one to the Dock, and if you don't like Apple's stack type options, just make an alias folder and add it to the Dock and it will act like a normal Finder folder.







- Patrick
======

 

[Rod]

Not a bad idea Patrick but I think Chas recons I've got way to much already there though I guess I could remove a few of the less used app icons that way. I might give it a try if I can find a good display option. My wife on the other hand is a little more resistant to change.