Support

This page covers Dock Party 3.6. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, or something isn’t working the way it should, please just email me.

dax@dockparty.app

— Dax

Getting Started

Installation

Dock Party is available on the Mac App Store. Version 3.6 requires a Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 15 Sequoia or later. If your Mac has an Intel processor or runs macOS 14 Sonoma, the App Store will offer you Dock Party 3.5.4, the last compatible version.

First Launch

The first time you use Dock Party, macOS asks for a couple of permissions:

• Automation — lets Dock Party control Spotify and Apple Music and read track details. Without it, none of the music features work. Manage it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
• Audio capture — lets the visualizers tap into the Spotify and Apple Music audio streams. Dock Party does not record or transmit any audio.

Other permissions (Camera, Photos, Apple Music) are only requested when you use the feature that needs them.

Dock Party runs as a menu bar app. By default it has no Dock icon. Look for the Dock Party icon (a music note over a little Dock) in your menu bar. Click it to open the popover with player controls, album art, and track info. Right-click it for About Dock Party, Settings…, and Quit.

Where Are the Controls?

Dock Party’s main interface lives along the bottom of your screen, right beside the Dock: player controls on one side, track details and album art on the other. They’re always accessible without switching apps. Clicking them never steals focus from the app you’re working in.

New in 3.6: Dock Party stays put along the bottom of the screen even if your Dock is hidden or on the side.

If you don’t see anything, make sure Spotify or Apple Music is open and playing, and check that the side panels are turned on in Settings → Dock.

Music Features

Supported Players

Dock Party works with the Spotify desktop app and the Apple Music desktop app. It doesn’t work with web players or other music apps. Both players can be installed at the same time; Dock Party follows whichever one is active. Choose your Preferred music player in Settings → General.

Player Controls

The player controls side panel has play/pause, skip forward, and skip back buttons. Optionally it also has shuffle, repeat, and volume controls. In Settings → Dock you can:

• choose which side of the Dock the panels appear on
• pick a control style (Accent Color, Automatic, Backlight, Black, Edgy, or White)
• pick a size (Manspreading or Demure)

Track Details and Album Art

The track info side panel shows the current song title, artist, and album, along with the album cover art. Click the album art to bring the active music player to the front. If you’ve connected your Spotify account, clicking the album art, song title, artist name, or album title takes you straight to that page in the Spotify app.

Like Button

The ♥️ button adds the current track to your library: Favorites in Apple Music, or Liked Songs in Spotify. The Spotify version requires a connected Spotify account (see below). You can hide the button in Settings → Dock.

Progress Bar

The track progress bar runs along the top edge of the Dock area. It shows elapsed and remaining time, with a scrubber you can click or drag. It has its own mini player controls at either end, and can optionally show track info. Turn it on or off in Settings → Dock.

Connecting Spotify and Apple Music

Basic playback control and track info work automatically through macOS Automation. No sign-in is needed. Connecting your accounts in Settings → Music Streaming unlocks extras:

• Spotify
  • The ♥️ button
  • Album and track links into the Spotify app
  • A 3-mode repeat button with single-song repeat (Spotify Premium only)
  • Opening tracks your buddies share from Apple Music directly in Spotify
  Connecting uses Spotify’s secure sign-in in your browser. Dock Party never sees your Spotify password.
• Apple Music
  • Sharing Apple Music tracks to your buddies’ Pic Parades
  • Opening tracks your buddies share from Spotify directly in Apple Music
  Connecting shows a standard macOS permission prompt.

Search Buttons and Album Cover Saving

The menu bar popover has buttons to look up the current song or artist on DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Songsterr, WhoSampled, and BandsInTown. The ↓ button saves the full-size album cover to your Downloads folder.

Visualizers and Dock Themes

Audio Visualizers

Dock Party offers three music visualizers that animate directly inside the Dock area:

• Pitch — Responds to the dominant pitch of the music with a colored stripe over an amplitude-driven background
• Amplitude — A single bar that pulses with the volume of the music, with smooth hue cycling
• Waveform — A 32-bar frequency spectrum, like a classic graphic equalizer

New in 3.6: an Opacity slider (10–100%) lets you tone the visualizer down.

The visualizers tap the audio straight from the Spotify or Apple Music app. That means they work with headphones, don’t need microphone access, aren’t affected by room noise, and don’t lower your audio quality.

Dock Background Styles

Apply a background style to the Dock area:

• Blue Wave (new in 3.6) — Rolling waves of blue
• Cylon — A red sweep, Knight Rider style
• Emergency — Alternating red and blue bars
• Neon — Colorful bars with staggered fades

There are also solid colors, gradients, and color cycling at three speeds (Slow Your Roll, Medium Pace, Ludicrous Speed). All of these are in Settings → Dock.

When no music player is running, the Dock background style is off, and Dock Pics is disabled, Dock Party hides its frosted-glass background entirely.

Track Progress in the Dock

This fills the Dock area with color as the song plays. It can fill Longways or Shortways.

Scrolling Marquee

The marquee scrolls the song title, artist name, album name, or a custom message across the Dock area. You can set the font, text color, edge shading, and speed.

Rounded Desktop Corners

Round the lower corners of your Desktop in one of three styles: Classic, Pro, or Neo.

Menu Bar

Status Bar Display

Dock Party can show the Dock Party icon in the menu bar, or the current track info in any of these combinations:

• Song
• Artist
• Album
• Song — Artist
• Song — Artist — Album

Choose the display and text size in Settings → Status Bar.

Status Bar Popover

Click the menu bar item to open a popover with large album art, player controls, track info, a progress bar, and the search buttons. Drag the popover away from the menu bar to detach it as a floating window. By default, clicking outside the popover closes it. Turn that off in Settings → Status Bar to keep it open while you work in other apps.

Dock Pics

Dock Pics is Dock Party’s built-in photo and music sharing service. Share photos, Spotify and Apple Music tracks, and webpage links with your buddies. Everything shows up in the Pic Parade, a horizontal stream of pics that rises above the Dock.

Creating an Account

Dock Pics needs a free account. Go to Settings → Dock Pics and either use Sign in with Apple or sign in with email and password. Need an account? Sign up with email on the web.

If you sign up with email, you’ll receive a confirmation email. Click the link to verify your address, then return to Dock Party and sign in. Once you’re signed in, make sure Enable Dock Pics is checked.

The Pic Parade

The Pic Parade shows your received and sent Dock Pics in one stream, newest on the left. It shares the Dock area with the visualizers and background styles, so your music and your pics party together.

• Show or hide it with the Pic Parade button in the player controls side panel. Hide it with the ⓧ button in the Parade toolbar.
• Resize it by dragging its top edge.
• Set a starting height under Reset Pic Parade height on launch in Settings → Dock Pics. The options run from Micro all the way up to Picmaxxing.

When the Parade is hidden, the music features keep working normally.

The Parade toolbar also has:

• the now-playing sharing button (see Now-Playing Subscriptions)
• a filter menu for Photos, Songs, Web Links, Winners Only, and Hidden Pics
• a shortcut to Dock Pics settings

Sending a Dock Pic

The console at the end of the Pic Parade is where you send Dock Pics. First choose a recipient from the To: menu, or click a Quickie. Then load something to send:

• Drop — drag an image file onto the drop zone
• Camera — take a pic with your Mac’s camera (new in 3.6, see below)
• Select from Photos — pick from your Photo library
• Share Current Song — share the track playing in Spotify or Apple Music. Your buddy sees the album art and can click to listen in either player.
• Select Image File — choose any image file on your Mac
• Share Web Link — paste a URL. Your buddy sees a preview of the page.

Then click Send.

Send with Dock Party (Share Menu)

New in 3.6: in Photos or Finder, select one image and choose Share → Send with Dock Party. The image loads into the console and the Pic Parade opens, ready to send. Dock Pics must be enabled.

Taking a Pic with the Camera

New in 3.6: click the camera button in the console to open the camera window.

• Mirror flips the preview, and the photo always matches what you see.
• After you snap a pic, you can apply an effect: Sepia, Noir, Glow, Comic Book, Thermal, X-Ray, Posterize, Bulge, Squeeze, Twirl, or Light Tunnel.
• Check Also save to Photos to keep a copy.
• Click Lock & Load to put the pic in the console, or Retake to try again.

Quickies and Crews

Quickies are three one-click recipient slots in the console. Click + on an empty slot to fill it. Right-click a slot to replace, remove, or reorder it.

New in 3.6: Crews are groups of buddies. Send to a crew and every member gets the pic. On your end it appears as a single pic in your Parade, labeled with the crew’s name. A crew can be a Quickie too: check Quickie on its card in the Buddies window. The 50-per-day send limit counts each crew member as one send.

Hard and Soft Pics

The Soft | Hard toggle in the console sets how your pic arrives:

• Soft pics slip quietly into your buddy’s Parade.
• Hard pics open your buddy’s Parade so they see your pic right away.

On the receiving end, you control how long a Hard Pic keeps your Parade open, in Settings → Dock Pics. You can also tell Dock Party to Treat Hard Pics like Soft Pics for any buddy, from their buddy card.

Flash Pics

New in 3.6: flip the console’s Flash | Keep toggle to Flash to send a pic that doesn’t stick around. Flash works with photos only. Shared songs and web links always send as Keep.

• A Flash Pic appears blurred in both your Parade and your buddy’s. Press and hold it to reveal it, either in the Parade or in the Big Pic viewer.
• The recipient can reveal it up to 2 times. When the second viewing ends, it disappears from their Parade.
• The sender can reveal their own copy as often as they like.
• Every Flash Pic expires 48 hours after it’s sent, in both Parades, viewed or not. The tile shows how much time is left.
• Flash Pics can’t be saved, trophied, pinned, hidden, or forwarded. Replying to one sets your buddy as the recipient but doesn’t copy the pic.
• Changed your mind? Use Unsend… to remove a Flash Pic from both Parades. It’s available only until the recipient’s first viewing.

By default, the toggle resets to Keep after each send. Change that with Always reset permanence to … after send in Settings → Dock Pics. There’s a matching option for Hard/Soft.

Big Pic View

Click any photo in the Parade to open it in the Big Pic viewer. Use the arrow buttons or the ← and → keys to move between pics, and the trophy button to mark a winner. Close it with the window’s close button.

Pic Options

Hover over a pic for quick actions:

• Reply
• Forward
• Add to Photos
• Add to Winners
• Pin at Front
• Hide
• Delete

Right-click a pic for even more:

• Open / Play — Play a shared track in Spotify or Apple Music (whichever was used to share it), or open a link in your browser
• Save to Photos, Save to File, Set as Wallpaper
• Reply — Pre-addresses the console to the sender
• Forward — Loads the pic into the console so you can send it to someone else
• View Buddy Card (or View Crew Card)
• Copy / Copy Link, Share…
• Hide — Removes the pic from the Parade without deleting it. Choose Hidden Pics in the toolbar filter menu to see hidden pics again.
• Delete Permanently… — Removes the pic from your Parade for good. Your buddy’s copy isn’t affected. The image is only deleted from storage once both of you have deleted it.

Winners and Pins

Mark your favorites as winners (🏆), then choose Winners Only in the toolbar filter menu to see just the best.

New in 3.6: Pin at Front keeps up to 3 pics at the front of the Parade, ahead of everything new.

Shared Albums

Subscribe to Shared Albums from your Photo library, and photos that other album members add will appear in your Pic Parade.

• Subscribing — Go to Settings → Dock Pics → Apple Photos Shared Album Subscriptions, click Connect to Photos…, then Select Shared Album(s)…. This needs full Photos access; you can grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos.
• Trickle load — When a lot of photos are added at once, this spaces them out instead of flooding your Parade.
• Show in Photos — Opens a Shared Album pic inside its album in Photos, where you can see who shared it, plus comments and likes.
• Unsubscribing — You choose whether to keep the pics already in your Parade or remove them. Dock Party doesn’t store its own copies of Shared Album photos, so kept pics stay only as long as they remain in Photos.

Now-Playing Subscriptions

New in 3.6: follow along with what a buddy is listening to. Their tracks appear in your Parade as a stack. Click it to play the current track, or hover and use the arrows to browse their recent listening history.

• Subscribing — On a buddy’s card in the Buddies window, check Subscribe to this buddy’s now-playing. Your buddy must approve the request, and its status (Pending, Approved, or Declined) shows next to the checkbox.
• Approving requests — Requests from buddies appear under Now-Playing Requests in the Buddies sidebar, with Accept and Decline buttons. You can also pre-approve a buddy by checking Allow this buddy to subscribe to my now-playing, and uncheck it at any time to revoke access.
• What gets shared — A track is shared only after it has played for 15 seconds, so songs you skip past don’t get shared.
• Private listening — The radio-waves button in the Parade toolbar turns sharing on (accent color) or off (gray). You can also uncheck Share now-playing with subscribers in Settings → Dock Pics, which also shows how many subscribers you have.

Image Quality

Dock Pics keeps your photos at much higher quality than most social media services. Originals are stored at full resolution. The Parade shows optimized thumbnails so it scrolls smoothly, and the Big Pic viewer loads a high-resolution version.

Local Disk Cache

Dock Party keeps local copies of the Dock Pics you’ve sent and received on your Mac’s disk. This keeps the Pic Parade fast and lets you view your pics without an internet connection. The cached files live in:

~/Library/Containers/com.packafoma.Dockside/Data/Library/Caches

The cache is local to your Mac and separate from the cloud copies.

• If you delete a pic, its cached file is removed too.
• If you delete your account, the cloud copies of your pics are removed, but files already cached on your disk are not deleted automatically. You can remove them yourself at the path above.
• The cache rebuilds itself the next time you view your pics, so it’s safe to delete at any time to free up space.

Buddies

Dock Pics uses a buddy system. You can only send and receive pics with people you’re connected to. No strangers, no spam, no algorithms.

Adding Buddies

Open the Buddies window with the buddies button in the console. Click + in the toolbar to send a buddy request: enter the person’s first name, last name, and email address.

If the person already has a Dock Pics account, the request appears in their Received Requests. If not, they’ll get an email invitation, and the connection completes automatically when they sign up. Requests you’ve sent are listed under Sent Requests, where you can send a reminder (once per day) or cancel.

Responding to Requests

Incoming buddy requests appear in the Received Requests section of the Buddies sidebar, where you can accept or decline each one.

Buddy Cards

Each buddy has a card where you can:

• Set a nickname that appears in your buddy list and the To: menu
• Set a custom profile pic that only you see. Choose from the Dock Party avatars, your Photo library, or any image file.
• Set Boundaries:
  • Treat Hard Pics like Soft Pics
  • Block quietly
• Manage Benefits:
  • All-Star (⭐) — All-Stars are listed at the top of the sidebar
  • Quickie — Puts the buddy in a console Quickie slot
  • Now-playing subscriptions — Subscribe to the buddy’s now-playing, or allow them to subscribe to yours (see Now-Playing Subscriptions)
• Add to Crews
• Ghost… the buddy to end the connection

Crews

Click + next to Crews in the Buddies sidebar to create one. From the crew’s card you can:

• name it
• add members
• make it a Quickie
• disband it (disbanding a crew never deletes any buddies)

Your “Me” Card

Your own card is at the top of the Buddies sidebar. Edit your name and profile pic, and see your sign-in email plus any additional verified email addresses. Use Manage Account on Web to add email addresses (up to 2 more, so buddies can find you by them) or to change your password.

Settings

Open Settings by right-clicking the Dock Party menu bar item, with the gear button in the Parade toolbar or the menu bar popover, or with ⌘, while a Dock Party window is active. The tabs:

• Dock
  • Visualizer and opacity
  • Dock background style
  • Track progress in the Dock
  • Rounded corners
  • Side panel options (side, style, size, volume, shuffle/repeat)
  • App icon in the Dock
  • Progress bar
  • Scrolling marquee
• Dock Pics
  • Sign in or out
  • Enable Dock Pics
  • Pic Parade starting height and console spacing
  • Hard/Soft and Keep/Flash reset after send
  • How long Hard Pics keep the Parade open
  • Open shared songs in your preferred player
  • Save camera pics to Photos
  • Share now-playing with subscribers
  • Shared Album subscriptions
• Status Bar — Menu bar icon or track info, text size, and popover behavior
• Music Streaming — Connect Spotify and Apple Music
• General
  • Accent color
  • Preferred music player
  • Start Dock Party at login
  • Keep Dock Party on top of other apps
  • Keep Dock Party visible during Show Desktop, Mission Control, or Stage Manager

Requirements and Compatibility

• Mac with Apple silicon
• macOS 15 Sequoia or later (optimized for macOS 26 Tahoe)
• Spotify desktop app and/or Apple Music desktop app for the music features
• Automation permission for Spotify and/or Apple Music
• A free Dock Pics account for photo and music sharing

Dock Party is designed around a Dock at the bottom of the screen. Since 3.6, though, it stays along the bottom of the screen even when the Dock is hidden or on the side.

Privacy

Dock Party doesn’t serve ads and collects minimal data. See the full Privacy Policy for details.

• Dock Pics accounts store only what’s needed to deliver the service: your email, name, profile pic, buddy connections, and the pics you send and receive. Dock Party doesn’t analyze, sell, or share your photos or personal data with anyone.
• Music features talk to Spotify and Apple Music locally on your Mac. The visualizers analyze audio on the fly; nothing is recorded or transmitted.
• Camera photos stay on your Mac unless you send them or save them to Photos.
• Your now-playing tracks are shared only with buddies you’ve approved, and only while sharing is turned on.
• Shared Album photos are read from your Photo library and shown only in your own Pic Parade.

Dock Tips