Reduce Dock Clutter in OS X by Minimizing Windows

The best solution to reduce this Dock clutter is to toggle a little feature in Dock Preferences that sends all minimized windows to shrink into it’s application icon rather than into the Dock, thereby preventing those little window previews from appearing in the Dock entirely:

• Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu and choose “Dock”
• Check the box next to “Minimize windows into application icon”

With this feature enabled, use the normal minimize button or commands and you’ll notice the window gets sent into the respective application icon, no longer immediately visible in the Dock at all.

If you’re now wondering how to find those minimized app windows, all you need to do to show them all is right-click (or control-click) the applications icon to reveal a list of that apps minimized windows, shown as the name of the given document or window titlebar:

Select anything from the list and it will open up as expected.

The right side of the Dock remains blank and uncluttered, and you still have access to all of your windows.

You can also continue to show all windows of an app, including the minimized windows, through Mission Control with a three-fingered downward swipe gesture when hovering over the app icon.

Note: If this tutorial worked for you (and it should work), please leave a comment below. Thanks.