How to Use the Dock on Your iPad in iPadOS

You can access the Dock a couple of ways depending on your current screen. At the home screen, the Dock is always visible. If you're in a folder or an app and want to see the Dock, swipe up from the bottom of the screen, but not too much; just enough to trigger the Dock.

You can add an app icon from the home screen to the Dock. With iPadOS 13.1, though, the procedure has changed. Long-press on the icon until you see a pop-up menu with various commands, including one to Rearrange Apps. Tap that command.

The icons then start jiggling and will sport the familiar X in the upper-left corner. Alternatively, keep pressing down on the icon even after the menu appears, and the icons will eventually start jiggling.

Hold down the icon and drag it into the Dock to the left of the vertical border separating recently used apps. Swipe up the screen or tap the Done button in the upper right to stop the jiggling. This process can also be repeated to add entire folders to the Dock.

As you add more icons, the existing Dock icons shrink, even more so if you hold your iPad in portrait mode. How many icons can you add? That depends on the size of your iPad. The larger the iPad, the more icons it can typically house in the Dock. Experiment with your iPad to see just how many icons you can squeeze in the Dock.

Too many icons crammed into the Dock? Kick some out. Long-press on an icon in the Dock to display a pop-up menu, tap the command to Rearrange Apps (or just keep pressing on the icon). When the icons start to jiggle, hold down the icon you want to remove and drag and drop it onto the home screen.

To delete an app nestled on the Dock, again long-press on it until you see the pop-up menu and then tap the command to Rearrange Apps (or keep long pressing on it). When the apps start to jiggle, tap the X in the icon's upper-left corner. If the app has no X, that means it's a built-in app that can't be removed. iOS asks for confirmation, telling you that deleting the app will also delete its data. Tap Delete to put the kibosh on it.

You can also change the order of the apps in the Dock. Long-press any icon in the Dock, then choose Rearrange Apps from the pop-up menu. After the icons starting jiggling, drag and drop any icon you want to move to a different spot in the Dock.

The Dock reserves space for recently accessed or suggested apps; they appear on the right on the other side of the horizontal divide.

As you open new apps, you'll notice that their icons appear in that section of the Dock, replacing one of the older icons. This section can hold as many as three icons, including those available for Apple Handoff, though the permanent fixtures in the Dock can eventually start squeezing them out, depending on how many you have.

Don't need to see one of those recently used apps? You can wait until it gets replaced by a new one, or simply delete it from the Dock.

Long-press any icon and select Rearrange Apps. After the icons start jiggling, these recently used apps will sport a minus button instead of an X. Tap this button to remove the app. Deleting the icon from the recent apps section doesn't remove the app from your iPad, only from the dock.

Don't want to see recently accessed apps in the Dock at all? Disable that feature. Open Settings > Multitasking & Dock. At the bottom of the screen, turn off the Show Suggested and Recent Apps setting. Return to the home screen, and you'll see that your recent apps no longer appear in the Dock. Now you have more space to add additional icons.

The Dock comes in handy if you want to work with two or more apps on the same screen, and at least one of those apps is on the Dock. Open an app and swipe from the bottom of the screen to display the Dock. Hold down the icon for the second app and move it to one side of the screen until it turns into a small vertical window. Release your hold and the new app appears in Slide Over mode alongside the first app.

Drag the new window to the right until the other window starts to shrink and both apps fade out. Release your hold, and the window on the right slips into place in Split View mode. You can now resize the two windows by dragging the vertical center bar left or right.

Note that Split View mode works only with certain iPads, including the iPad Pro series, the 5th generation iPad and later, the iPad Air 2 and later, and the iPad mini 4 and later.

Finally, you can give the dock and your entire screen a darker look through dark mode. Swipe down from the top right of the screen to display Control Center. Press down on the control for brightness. Tap the Dark Mode button to turn it on. Tap the screen to get rid of Control Center. The dock now sports a dark background.

For more, check out the iOS 11 episode of One Cool Thing, our daily Facebook Live show. And read 28 Hidden iOS 11 Tips You Need to Know.