Disable Dock Bouncing in Mac OS X

The bouncing Dock icons are a nice GUI feature that let you know an app is launching on the Mac, but for some people those little bouncing icons are just really annoying. Additionally, Dock icons will bounce to notify you that an alert is active in the app, or the app needs your attention.

If you’re not a fan of the bouncing dock icons on a Mac, you can disable all Dock bouncing activity, including on app launch and the Dock icon bounce notifications in Mac OS X by using the command line.

To get started, launch Terminal and enter the following command strings. The first defaults command will disable dock bouncing, and the second will re-enable the feature on the Mac.

How to Disable All Dock Icon Bouncing in Mac OS X

Disabling All Dock Bouncing in Mac OS X:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE

Hit return, then enter the following command to restart the Dock:

killall Dock

Hit return again for changes to take effect by relaunching the Dock.

Now all bouncing is disabled in the Dock of any icons, whether launching or alerting.

How to Enable All Dock Icon Bouncing in Mac OS X

Re-enable Dock bouncing for Mac OS X by entering these commands:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool FALSE

Hit Return key, then follow it up with:

killall Dock

Again hit the return key, this refreshes the Dock.

Note that these commands don’t just disable the launch bounce animation, it disables all bouncing from the icons within the Dock, so iTunes, iChat, etc, will no longer bounce to notify you of an event going on in that application. If you only want to disable the opening Dock animation you can simply turn off animation within the Dock preferences by unchecking the ‘Animate Opening Applications’ option.