Introduction

DockAltTab brings Windows-like window previews to the macOS Dock. Hover a Dock icon and its windows pop up right above it, and the familiar AltTab switcher (⌥⇥ by default) is still there too. It is free and open source (GPL-3.0) and requires macOS 12 or later.

DockAltTab used to be a companion app that drove a separate “scriptable” AltTab fork over Apple Events. As of v4.00.0 it is a single standalone app: the DockAltTab behaviour now lives inside the AltTab codebase, so there is no companion app to install and no Apple Events round-trip. That makes installing, developing and contributing to DockAltTab simpler than before. Support FOSS

What it does

• Dock hover previews — hover any Dock app icon to see its windows, positioned and clipped relative to the icon (magnification- and edge-aware).
• Thumbnail previews — hover a window thumbnail to expand it into a large preview; the delay is configurable.
• No unwanted Space switching — clicking a Dock icon in the click-driven modes unhides the app first and only activates it once it is visible, instead of triggering a Space swoosh.
• The full AltTab switcher and its settings remain available.

Modes

Installation

Download the latest release — v — unzip it, move DockAltTab.app to your Applications folder and open it.

• On first launch, grant Accessibility and Screen Recording access in System Settings, then relaunch. Accessibility powers the Dock/window queries; Screen Recording is needed for window thumbnails.
• No companion app or secondary AltTab install is required — DockAltTab is self-contained.

Alternatively, you can build the app yourself: clone the DockAltTab source code, open alt-tab-macos.xcworkspace in Xcode and run the Debug scheme (CocoaPods are vendored).

License

DockAltTab is free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license, built on AltTab.