---
name: Dock
slug: dock
category: component
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: A persistent strip of application icons anchored to a screen edge,
  holding launchers, running apps and pinned items in one row.
aliases:
  - name: taskbar
    source: community
  - name: app dock
    source: community
  - name: launcher bar
    source: community
  - name: shelf
    source: community
tags:
  - platform-registers
  - windowing
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - bottom-navigation
    - menu-bar-extra
    - navigation-rail
    - utility-bar
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - dock-magnification
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "NameThatUI: element index"
    url: https://namethatui.com/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: the persistent row of app icons at a screen edge
---

A dock is the operating system's own strip of application icons, pinned to one edge of the
screen and outliving every window on it. Three kinds of thing share the row: launchers a
person pinned there deliberately, applications that happen to be running right now, and
whatever else the platform lets you drop in (a folder, a file, a minimised window). The
strip is the same control in all three cases, which is why a separator usually sits between
the pinned section and the temporary one: without it there is no way to see which icons will
still be there tomorrow.

The naming is a genuine cross-platform mess and worth learning in full. It is the dock on
macOS, iPadOS and most Linux desktops, the taskbar on Windows, and the shelf on ChromeOS.
Windows also puts a clock and a notification area in the same strip, which macOS keeps in
the [menu bar](/menu-bar) instead, so the two are not quite the same component even though
they occupy the same edge. Web and mobile products borrow the shape freely: a
[bottom navigation](/bottom-navigation) bar looks like a dock and is not one, because its
items are places inside a single app rather than applications.

Against a [toolbar](/toolbar) the split is about scope. A toolbar carries commands that act
on the document in front of you and dies with that window; a dock switches between
applications and belongs to the shell. Against a menu bar it is about shape: a menu bar is a
hierarchy of every command an app has, opened one menu at a time, while a dock is a flat row
where each icon is one target. An [app shell](/app-shell) that keeps a persistent left rail
of product areas is closer to a dock than to either, and calling it one is fair.

The state a dock has to carry is small but load-bearing: which items are pinned, which are
running (conventionally a dot or a line under the icon), and which is frontmost. Launching
an app is the moment all of that becomes visible, since an icon can move from launcher to
running app without moving position at all. The row's hover behaviour is a separate term:
[dock magnification](/dock-magnification) is the bell curve that swells the icons under the
pointer, an effect macOS ships turned off, and a strip with it disabled is still very much a
dock.