Mac Dock frozen or not responding? How to restart it safely

How do I unfreeze the Dock on my Mac?

Restart the Dock on its own. Open Terminal, type this and press Return:

killall Dock

The Dock disappears for a moment and macOS starts it again. Your apps and windows stay open: the Dock is a separate process, and restarting it closes nothing.

How do I restart the Dock without Terminal?

Open Activity Monitor, search for Dock, select it, click the stop button at the top, and choose Quit. It comes back by itself, the same as with the command.

Why are Mission Control and Spaces stuck too?

The Dock process runs more than the Dock. Mission Control, Spaces and hot corners all belong to it, so when it hangs they hang together, and restarting it fixes all of them. On our Mac the Dock process had been running for two and a half days without a restart.

What if the Dock keeps freezing?

1. Restart the Mac, which clears more than the Dock.
2. Install macOS updates in System Settings, General, Software Update.
3. Remove apps that change the Dock, such as Dock replacements or icon packs, one at a time, and see if the freezing stops.
4. As a last step, reset the Dock to how it shipped: defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock. This removes every app you added and your Dock settings.

If the Dock is missing rather than frozen, see the Dock disappeared. If Mission Control alone misbehaves, see the Mission Control guide.

Checked on 16 October 2026 on a MacBook Air (M1) running macOS 27.0.1, by reading the Dock's settings, the labels in System Settings and the keyboard shortcut list. Nothing was changed. The Dock process was read with ps; it was not restarted.