Blog

Engineering Deep Dives.

Technical guides on macOS window management, clipboard history, native Swift development, and the craft of building productivity tools that feel like part of the operating system.

Guide6 min readFebruary 2026

How to preview windows from the Dock on Mac without clicking

macOS doesn't offer live window previews from the Dock by default. DockMaster adds hover-to-preview functionality using ScreenCaptureKit — giving you instant visual access to every open window without switching apps. Here's how dock preview works on Mac and why it changes the way you multitask.

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Engineering8 min readJanuary 2026

Why native Cmd+Tab is broken — and how DockMaster replaces it

macOS's built-in app switcher was designed for single-window apps. It switches apps, not windows. We dig into AXUIElement and CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo to explain why Cmd+Tab fails for modern workflows, and how DockMaster's Global Switcher rebuilds window management with Option+Tab.

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Comparison10 min readJanuary 2026

DockMaster vs AltTab: which Mac window switcher is better in 2026?

AltTab is a free, open-source window switcher for Mac. DockMaster goes further with live Dock previews, a built-in clipboard manager, file shelf, and edge snapping — all in one native Swift app. We compare features, performance, and privacy side by side.

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Swift12 min readDecember 2025

Building a memory-safe clipboard manager for Mac in Swift

High-resolution images can silently inflate your clipboard app's memory to gigabytes. We walk through our CoreImage-based downsampling pipeline, Instruments profiling workflow, and the exact policies that keep DockMaster's clipboard history cache under 50MB — while supporting text, rich text, images, and file references.

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Deep Dive10 min readDecember 2025

Cross-desktop window awakening: raising any window on any macOS Space

Raising a window on a different macOS Space normally triggers a jarring full-screen animation. We reverse-engineered CGSSpace APIs and built a hybrid Accessibility + CoreGraphics technique that teleports any window to your current Space silently — no animation, no context loss.

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Privacy7 min readNovember 2025

Why DockMaster asks for Screen Recording permission on Mac

Many users are understandably cautious when a Mac app asks for Screen Recording. DockMaster uses this permission exclusively for local, in-memory window thumbnails via ScreenCaptureKit. No frames are saved to disk, no data is uploaded. Here's exactly how it works and why your privacy is safe.

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Productivity5 min readNovember 2025

5 macOS productivity habits that replaced my third-party app stack

Before DockMaster, I used separate apps for window tiling, clipboard history, and file staging. Here's how combining dock preview, clipboard manager, and file shelf into one native Mac tool simplified my workflow — and why fewer apps can mean more focus.

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Comparison9 min readOctober 2025

DockMaster vs Raycast: focused desktop workflow vs command launcher

Raycast is a powerful command launcher with extensions and AI. DockMaster is a focused dock utility for window previews, clipboard history, and file shelf. They solve different problems — here's when to use each, and why many Mac power users run both.

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Guide6 min readOctober 2025

How to tile windows on Mac with drag-to-edge snapping

macOS Sequoia introduced native window tiling, but it's limited. DockMaster's Edge Snapping adds drag-to-edge half, quarter, and fullscreen tiling that works alongside native macOS behavior — no keyboard shortcuts to memorize. A simple guide to cleaner window management on Mac.

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Engineering8 min readSeptember 2025

Zero battery drain: how DockMaster keeps idle CPU under 0.1%

Most Electron-based productivity tools consume 2–5% CPU at idle. DockMaster is built entirely with Swift and Apple's native APIs — no background daemons, no polling loops. We explain our event-driven architecture, Grand Central Dispatch usage, and how we validated idle CPU impact on Apple Silicon.

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