
Dock Party 4+
Music visualizer and controls
Dax Mackenzie Roggio
-
- $1.99
Screenshots
Description
Summer Sale! Now you can throw a Dock Party for the price of a...hmm...actually, I can’t think of anything else this cheap!
Turn your macOS Dock into a dynamic light bar that syncs with your music and brings your Dock to life. Display track details and album cover art right beside the Dock. Control music playback with clickable controls that are always visible. Like songs. Or simply customize your Mac by giving your Dock a fresh color.
• Compatible with macOS 14 Sonoma and macOS 15 Sequoia
• Works with Spotify desktop app or Apple Music desktop app
Dock Party is a lightweight Spotify and Apple Music playback controller that offers a variety of ways to display album cover art, song details, and track progress for the currently playing track. Dock Party runs in the background as a menu bar status item that doesn’t take up any space in the Dock. It also features a unique audio visualizer that turns the Dock itself into a dynamic show of color and rhythm in sync with your music.
A key advantage of Dock Party is that the controls, track details, and visualizer are always visible as long as the Dock itself is visible. It doesn’t matter what app you’re working in; you can see what song is playing without a single click.
Dock Party runs efficiently in the background with low impact on system resources. Settings options and other features can be accessed from the Menu Bar icon. Most interface elements can be turned on or off or customized.
It is important to note that the Dock music controls and visualizer will not be visible unless the Dock itself is visible, for obvious reasons. If you always keep your Dock hidden or always run your apps in full-screen, this is probably not the app for you, unless you’re just here for the menu bar features, which work just fine on their own. Dock Party also works best when the Dock is positioned in its default location at the bottom of the screen, ideally with some space to spare on each side. Consider removing the icons of infrequently used apps if your Dock stretches all the way from edge to edge across the full-width of your screen. You can also opt to hide the track details completely and still see album cover artwork and visual effects. Track details can also be displayed within the Dock Party progress bar and in the macOS menu bar.
Features:
• Resizes automatically along with the size and position of your Dock
• Track details and album art next to the Dock with player controls on the other side
• Silky-smooth, controllable track progress bar along the edge of the Dock
• Amplitude, Pitch, and Waveform visualizers in the Dock
• Track progress visualizer in the Dock
• Dock color styles: Choose from a variety of colors, gradients, and animations
• Runs in the background as a status item in the menu bar with no icon taking up space in the Dock
• Much less irritating than the standard macOS song change notifications
• Menu bar drop-down displays song details and provides its own controls
• Shuffle and repeat controls
• Save full-sized album cover image file to your Downloads directory with the Save Album Cover button
• Buttons to search song and artist info on DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Genius Lyrics, Ultimate Guitar Tabs, and BandsInTown
• Display song title, artist, and/or album name in the menu bar
• Scrolling marquee with customizable text message
• Universal binary for native performance on Apple Silicon (ARM64) and Intel (x86-64) CPUs
What’s New
Version 3.0.4
3.0.4
• Fixed a bug that was causing the album name to appear in menu bar instead of artist name
• Like button now works with the latest version of Apple Music
• Better responsiveness to changes in Dock position and size
• Fixed an issue that would cause Dock Party to steal focus from the active app when clicked
3.0.3
• New appearance option for player controls: “Backlight”
• Right-clicking Dock Party in status bar now shows menu options for Settings, About, and Quit
• More accurate matching of main window dimensions to Dock size
• Fixed a bug that could cause track info text in the menu bar to get cut off
3.0.2
• New scrolling marquee option to display artist, song, or album
• More scrolling marquee font options
• Dock area album info text size now adjusts dynamically in proportion to window height
• New size options for menu bar track info text
3.0.1
• Fixed a bug that prevented Dock Party from hiding along with the Dock if the active app entered full screen mode
3.0 Major update!!!
• Dock Party now taps into system audio directly to monitor the Spotify and Apple Music audio streams. No more microphone access required! This offers a number of benefits:
• Visualizers now work even when you’re using headphones
• No drop in audio quality (“call mode”) when listening through duplex Bluetooth devices
• No need for third-party audio routing apps or custom aggregate devices
• Visualizers respond directly to the music without interference from ambient sounds
Also in this update:
• New Dock background animation: “Neon”
• Enhanced pitch and waveform visualizers
• Greater leveraging of GPU to boost efficiency and responsiveness of visualizers and background animations
• RAM usage has gone from low to even lower
• Fixed a bug that could prevent Dock Party from gaining automation access
• General performance improvements and bug fixes
Ratings and Reviews
Great app, missing customizability
This app is amazing! That is, when you're using the dock on the bottom of the screen. On either side, the play/pause and skip buttons get really bunched up, even at the largest dock size. I wish I could turn them off, or move them next to the album art. Or just get rid of the backwards button. I want to love this app, but small annoyances stop it from reaching its full potential.
Also, apparently "more features are on the way"... but it hasn't been updated for 5 months and is only on version 1.0.4
Developer Response ,
Thank you for the thoughtful review! You’re absolutely right that Dockside currently works best when the Dock is in the bottom position. I will definitely take your suggestions into account for improving functionality in the side positions. I have in fact been making progress on the next update, but I do apologize for the long delay. I’m a one-man band and haven’t had the time to dedicate to Dockside that I would like, but I am still passionate about its potential. I hope to release the next version this spring with quite a few refinements and new features. Thanks for your patience and support!
Great so far, needs more user control
I love this app. I am a huge fan of being able to see my music info (especially album covers) in the dock, away from my work space. However, as the app is currenly written, I have no control over where in the dock the information appears, or how it appears. I'd also like to be able to turn off the conroller and modify the song information next to the artwork. Good so far, but lacks the custumability that would really great.
Developer Response ,
Thank you for the review and thoughtful feedback. I just submitted a free update to Apple that adds a bit more ability to customize, but not everything you’re looking for. I think the option to hide the player controls is a great idea that I will definitely add to the version I’m working on now. Hopefully, Apple will push the update in the next couple of days. Thanks again!
Exactly what I needed
For years, I'd been dragging the Apple Music miniplayer to where this app puts the play info. It always moved out of place and was generally inconvenient.. but this is the solution.
There is a great deal of customization as well. A side effect of this app is being able to change the color of the dock!
I was running into one glitch and the dev was very click to patch it when I emailed them - always nice to have a responsive dev.
Developer Response ,
I used to do the same thing with the mini player! But it didn’t want to stay put and was kind of clumsy. That’s pretty much why I created Dock Party in the first place! And it’s so nice hear from someone who appreciates the Dock color customizations as well! There are even more options in version 3 and more on the way. Thanks for the review!
App Privacy
The developer, Dax Mackenzie Roggio, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Dax Mackenzie Roggio
- Size
- 4.4 MB
- Category
- Music
- Compatibility
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- Mac
- Requires macOS 14.2 or later.
- Languages
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English
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2025 Packafoma LLC
- Price
- $1.99
Supports
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Family Sharing
Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.