Dockside
macOS app for $2.99
Available in the App Store for only $2.99: Dockside for Mac
» For technical support, please leave a comment below.
An elegant, lightweight “Now Playing” utility and controller for iTunes that fits perfectly next to your Dock, displaying album artwork, track details, and compact player controls. We love Apple’s macOS design aesthetics, but it’s time to make use of that wasted space on each side of The Dock!
- Designed for the magnificent Retina displays of iMacs and iMac Pros, but also adjusts to the smaller screens of MacBooks and MacBook Pros
- Resizes automatically along with the size and position of your Dock
- Minimalist interface remains visible at all times while iTunes is running and is much less irritating than the default iTunes notifications
- Option to display song title, artist, or album name in menu bar in addition to the unique Dockside display
- Option to run quietly in background and turn on or off automatically when iTunes is launched or closed
Note: Dockside works with Apple Music and will display track details and album artwork for songs that have been added to your library — even if the music files have not been downloaded to your computer! However, album artwork is not available while streaming tracks that have not yet been added to your collection.
Many more features are already in beta and will be included in free updates in the near future, including Spotify support, more appearance options, broader album cover support for Apple Music, and some nifty surprises!
There is no shortage of “Now Playing” apps for macOS, but we think you will find this one to be more refined and more fun. Enjoy your music!
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Thanks for this! What a great idea!
The Dockside app does not what it is supposed to do, at least not on my MacBook with macOS High Sierra ver 10.13.6. All I get is the Dockside logo on the menu bar with its limited pulldown menu. Nothing shows up on either side of the dock.
Hi Peter. I’m sorry to hear that Dockside is not working for you. I assume that iTunes is running? If so, can you try quitting and re-launching iTunes? Thanks!
As suggested, I have tried quitting and relaunching iTunes a few times with no improvement on Dockside. FYI, I had just updated iTunes to the latest version (12.8) prior to downloading Dockside. I have also rebooted the MacBook a few times but this did not help either. What else can I try?
OK. Thanks for trying that. I am running High Sierra 10.13.6 and iTunes 12.8 myself and Dockside runs flawlessly. So it’s definitely compatible. I will email you directly, and we’ll figure it out. Thanks for your patience.
As an update for anyone who reads this thread, I emailed with Peter and we figured out the problem. Peter has Dock hiding on. Unfortunately, Dockside does not work with a hidden Dock, even while the Dock is temporarily visible from sliding the mouse pointer to the edge. This is a known limitation. The sandboxing restrictions of the App Store make it impossible to monitor that particular event.
For most users, this won’t be an issue since Dockside is designed to remain visible at all times alongside an always visible Dock (whenever iTunes is open). However, it happens that I’m working on a stand-alone version of the app that will include a number of features that just aren’t possible in the App Store version. One such benefit will be that Dockside will hide/unhide along with the Dock when Dock hiding is on.
awesome app! It fits perfectly next to the Dock on my 5K iMac, and I love that I don’t have to click on anything or give up screen space to see what song is playing. When do you expect to add Spotify support? thanks!!!
I probably won’t have time to complete the version with Spotify support for a few months, but it’s definitely coming (as a free update). Thanks for the note and for purchasing Dockside!
Such A great app! It fits perfectly next to the Dock on my Mac, and I love that I don’t have to click on anything or give up screen space to see what song is playing. When do you expect to add Mac support number? thanks!
Comments are working again! I got a lot of emails recently from people who came here to ask a support question and were unable to leave a comment. I now realize that comments were being blocked for more than a year. Whoops.
To answer the most common question, yes, I am aware that Catalina broke Dockside, but the wait is over! I just released version 1.0.6 and it is fully compatible with Catalina (macOS 10.15). This is a free update for owners of earlier versions. Thanks for your patience! I hope to have more time to devote to this app in the near future.
Any chance of getting Like support for Spotify?
A very good chance! In fact, I have already started coding that feature into the next release (v1.8). I didn’t want to delay basic Spotify support any longer, which is why I didn’t include all the features I have planned in the recent update, but I’m working on them. Thanks for the comment!
Looks like the menu bar display is buggy for Spotify. When songs change, the menu bar content is not changing.
I am now! Thank you! It’s working fine in my local build but it’s clearly broken in the App Store version. I will get to the bottom of it and release a fix ASAP.
I just submitted v1.7.1, which fixes the problem.
Perhaps because I am a lefty, I find my cursor on the left side of the screen most of the time. For fun, would you consider making the album art a play/pause toggle?
Hello~ I think the newest version of dockside (v 1.7.1) has some bugs about memory management~
I realize that dockside would slowly increases its memory usage to over 1GB in the background even when it’s idle.
I think this bug appeared after the update that adding Spotify support.
btw my system environment is macOS 10.15.4
Thanks!!
Thanks, PY. You are correct. That is definitely a new problem, and one that I am aware of. I don’t think the memory leak occurs if Dockside has been running in the background only, such as after a restart, but as soon as a music player is active, the memory usage gradually but continually increases well beyond the small amount of memory that is actually required. Unfortunately, the only way to release that memory right now is to restart Dockside.
I have concluded that the bug is related to the display of album art, and I am working on a fix. Thank you for your report!
Memory leak fixed! You can expect RAM usage to remain quite low indefinitely.
I just submitted v1.7.2 to the App Store. This free update should be available in a few days (and will update automatically if you have automatic app updating enabled).
1. Can you add the ability for it to work with an autohiding dock?
2. Any way to add a “like” button for spotify?
Thanks for writing. The answer to the first question is: I think so. That’s an ability I definitely plan on adding. The only issue seems to be that it requires certain accessibility features to be enabled, which may just mean including instructions on how to do that. Most macOS users are pretty used to messing with that for some apps now, but it’s an extra installation step that I am hoping to avoid. In any case, that feature is high on the to-do list. As for the the “Like” button, that’s even higher on the list!
Any more appearance options in the works? In order to view all the track details, I have to have my dock very large.
Hi Pete. There are absolutely more appearance options in the works. I know it has been a slow trickle, but I have been adding more and more customization options with each update and will continue to do so. As for your particular request, more fine-tuned control over how the track details are displayed is something I have been working on. Thanks for writing!
I’d love to disable ‘show background’ (because I think it looks cool with no background color), but the track information is not readable on a lighter background. Can I make that a request, to allow us to choose the font color?
Thanks!!
That’s a very good point. I am working on more comprehensive control over the appearance of the track details in general, but a simple option for light backgrounds would be a nice, quick fix in the meantime. I will try to fit that into the next release, which I plan on releasing by the end of the month (June 2020). Thanks!
Hey, dockside has been great but I have run into a little issue recently. I recently added a second monitor to my iMac and now when I open iTunes sometimes the controller won’t open. The menubar item will be there working, but control panel doesn’t appear. This issue only occurs when iTunes opens in my second monitor. I can quit Dockside and reopen and it won’t display the controllers. If I move iTunes to my iMac (main monitor), then quit and reopen dockside. Then controller will appear and work after that.
Thanks
Hi i use multiple desktops im my Mac. But dockside works only on a specific desktop. I think this is because Mac Doc “assigned” it to that window. If dockside had a dock icon i could easily right click and set “assign to all desktops” however lack of dock icon prevents this.
Is there a way to solve this.
If there was an enable/disable dock icon option i could: enable dock icon > assign to all desktops > and re disable dock icon.