How to accelerate the Dock animation speed using Terminal on macOS

If you use a Mac every day, you know the Dock animation—when you minimize or open windows—is smooth, but sometimes it feels a little slow. Maybe you want your workflow to be snappier or just want to experiment. Good news: you can speed up the Dock animation using a quick Terminal command.

Here’s how to do it.

Why Change the Dock Animation Speed?

For most users, the default animation is fine. But if you want a faster, more responsive feel when minimizing and restoring windows, tweaking this setting can shave off those microseconds and make your Mac feel snappier.

What You’ll Need

• A Mac running macOS (any recent version)
• Terminal app (pre-installed on every Mac)

The Steps

1. Open Terminal

You’ll find Terminal in Applications > Utilities, or you can hit Command + Space and type “Terminal”.

2. Enter the Command

Copy and paste the following line into Terminal and press Enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock minimize-to-application -bool true; defaults write com.apple.dock mineffect -string "scale"; defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.1; killall Dock

What does this do?

• Sets the minimize effect to “scale” (the fastest one)
• Makes the animation ultra-fast by reducing the hide/show time modifier
• Restarts the Dock to apply changes

3. Test the Dock

Now, minimize or un-minimize a window, or hide and show the Dock. The animation should be noticeably quicker.

Want to Revert Back?

No worries. You can restore the default Dock animation speed with this command:

defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier; killall Dock

Final Tips

• You can change the speed by adjusting the number at the end of the command (e.g., 0.5 for a half-second, 0.1 for super-fast).
• If you ever mess things up, you won’t break your Mac. The killall Dock part just restarts the Dock, not your whole computer.

Conclusion

Making your Mac feel faster can be as simple as speeding up a small animation. Use Terminal, run a single command, and you’re good to go. Want to go back? One command resets everything. That’s it—quick, easy, and effective.

Got other Mac tweaks you want to see? Let me know in the comments!

Mark Vincent

Tech enthusiast and content creator passionate about making technology simple for everyone. I share practical tips, guides, and reviews on the latest in computers, software, and gadgets. Let’s explore the digital world together!