Disable the Menu Bar and Dock when playing games in Fullscreen

Question

Disable the Menu Bar and Dock when playing games in Fullscreen

I often find myself playing MTG Arena, and I've been doing so, lately, on a donated M1 Mac Mini. With that said, I often have to move my cursor to either the bottom or the top of the screen, and every time there's the menu bar or the dock.

I want them completely disabled when in games. Not moved. Not just hidden. Not delayed. Just disabled. Why is it so hard for Apple coders to do this? I've been trying to find a solution, and I've seen as far back as 10 years! 10 years and the same problem?! Am I missing something?!

Mac mini, macOS 14.1

Posted on Feb 4, 2025 4:22 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 6, 2025 3:28 AM in response to linkinpark187

You can at least minimize the chances of the Dock appearing by setting a large delay.

Running this in Terminal:

 defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay 5

will only show the Dock after a delay of 5 secondswhen you move the cursor to the Dock area.

Of course, you choose other values.

I have it set that way all the time, because I only rarely touch the Dock; and also, Command-Option-D toggles the Dock visibility, so you can have it appear immediately if you need it.

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

135,905 points

Feb 4, 2025 4:26 AM in response to linkinpark187

The only things you're missing is there is no way to do what you want and Sonoma is now up to 14.7.3. You are very far behind and should update.

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