Dock keeps auto-hiding on macOS Tahoe

That is not the expected behavior.

See if the problem is present when you boot in safe mode, which disables 3rd party extensions and performs some system cleanup.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

If that clears it up, reboot normally and quite likely the issue will be gone.

Have seen this issue before and they too were using macOS 26.0 with a Mac Mini

They may have said that using the Terminal command may have fixed the issue

killall Dock

Personally, using both a M2 and M4 Mac Mini with Tahoe 26.0

Have yet to experience this Dock issue

If all else fails

Holding the Option key

Finder >> Go >> Library >> Preferences

Find the .plist file >> com.apple.dock.plist <<

Move it to a place for safe keeping as you may or may not to put it back

Drag to com.apple.dock.plist out of its location

Restart the computer and then Test of the Dock issue persists or not

In theory the restart should create a new .plist file for the Dock

If no issues , it may indicate the original files became corrupted

DominoChance wrote:

AND there's no com.apple.dock anything in my preferences. Mac Mini M2.

hmmm— I see it here on my macOS 26

Finder>Go>Go To Folder, copy & paste:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

You can try simply resetting Dock from the Terminal.app copy ask paste:

defaults delete com.apple.dock && killall Dock

and compare your results.

So far so good on my M4 iMac.

Moved to Trash: com.apple.dock.extra.plist, com.apple.dock.plist, com.apple.dock.plist.lockfile

Restarted and all is fine as of now.

In my case I noticed this bug was related to screen saver.

Try switching off screen saver, waiting a few seconds and then back on.

This worked for me.

Regards,

I think this has something to do with the Screensaver. I set Screensaver to Never and the Dock seems to work as expected.

I turned OFF the Screensaver to see if that helps and so far so good. The only reason I turned OFF Screensaver is because the transition on my iMac M4 from Screensaver to Desktop is a little jumpy. Not a smooth transition.

So I'm thinking maybe that has some effect on the Dock. Simply just a guess and nothing to lose.

As others have said, file a bug report to get Apple’s attention (I did):

Feedback - macOS - Apple

You might want to read the earlier posts about submitting feedback to Apple. A “me too” response here does not get to Apple’s attention. Send feedback and it will.

Feedback - macOS - Apple

For what it's worth the beta of Tahoe 26.1 is now out for developers. You may have to wait for an update.

Yours is not the first report—

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

I'm having the same/similar issue. Mac Studio M4, Tahoe 26.0, Dual Mac Studio Displays

I have auto-hide off, but the dock will hide and even when I mouse down to the bottom of the screen, it doesn't always unhide.

If I toggle the setting on then off, the dock remains unhidden. That works for about a week, then it starts hiding again (even the the setting is still off).

I am also having this issue, M3 24inch desktop.

I have Automatically Hide and Show the Dock set to OFF. And had it set to off before I updated to Tahoe. It is still set to OFF. But every now and then I find the dock hidden. Seems random, or at least I can't tie it to anything that might be triggering it to hide. It will be fine for days - always showing, and then randomly I will notice its hidden and I have to right click it and choose "turn hiding off"

DJ-R wrote:

Came here from search, I have the same issue with my MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro (2021) with Tahoe 26.0.1.

Random time my dock turns on auto hide after screensaver or sleep.

MacBook is dock closed & connected to my Studio Display.

Bottom line? You’re just going to have to wait for Apple to get around to fixing it if it is a bug. Apparently most users are not seeing this. If it were universal these forums would be overwhelmed with posts like yours. In my own case the issue disappeared after a week of using Tahoe and has not come back so far.

All I had to do was toggle the System Settings->Desktop & Dock->Automatically hide and show the Dock->on/off/on/off and the problem went away.

I have system settings constantly on dock. So when it happens I just click on-off and it is OK till next time