DockView 2 launched this July, rebuilt from scratch on Apple’s current APIs. Previews are several times faster than in version 1, thumbnails are sharper, and memory use is lower.
What I did not expect is how much would follow. Three features arrived after the launch, and none of them existed in version 1:
- Window Switcher. Press ⌥⇥ and every open window lays out as a grid or a carousel — including windows sitting on other desktops, in full screen, and minimized ones. The things ⌘⇥ never shows you.
- Quick Windows. Press ⌥⌘F and pick a layout: halves, quarters, three-up, fill, centre, side-by-side. It drives macOS’s own window commands, so there is no window manager to learn.
- Dock Shortcuts. Hold ⌃⌥ and your Dock icons get numbers. Press one and you are in that app. The order is your Dock order, so it is already in your muscle memory.
Along the way a long-standing annoyance went away: windows living on another desktop used to show a thumbnail frozen minutes ago, because macOS stops redrawing them. DockView now captures those windows live, and previews keep refreshing while the panel is open.
Both keyboard features are off by default. They take over global shortcuts, and that should be your decision, not mine — switch them on in Settings.
Already have DockView 2? Just use Check for Updates. New here — see what it does.
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