Filed under: OS, Hacks, Terminal Tips
Terminal Tips: Disable Dashboard
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YESYou must restart the Dock in order for this hack to work, so type "killall Dock" into Terminal and press enter -- the Dock should restart. To enable Dashboard again, just type in the above command, replacing "YES" at the end with a "NO." Now when you try to launch Dashboard, nothing will happen; this will save you some system resources.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gordon Werner said 11:29AM on 8-21-2008
or you could just drag it out of the dock.
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Cycomachead said 5:17PM on 8-21-2008
You can also change dashboard's hotkey to nothing. The setting is under Expose in System prefs.
Simon Arch said 2:02AM on 8-22-2008
@Gordon - that wouldn't prevent accidental launches though when you hit the keyboard command. Doing that PLUS what Cyco recommends will almost guarantee you don't accidentally launch the Dashboard.
If you want to be 99.999% sure, compress the Dashboard app and throw away the original.
Lee said 11:56AM on 8-21-2008
Does dashboard actually use and background memory while you're not in it ? If not why is this important to me ( not being funny just wondering ).
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bankrobber said 12:15PM on 8-21-2008
If you don't have any widgets running, no.
Cycomachead said 5:15PM on 8-21-2008
Well yes and no.
If dashboard is not open (it's just a special app to run widgets) then no it's not using memory.
If you've opened Dashboard (it's hotkey or icon, etc) then yes when in the background it uses memory. To clear the memory *ANY* item that restarts the dock will close dashboard until you activate it.
Joshua Ochs said 12:00PM on 8-21-2008
As others said - just drag it out of the Dock. Don't like it, don't have to activate it. It takes zero CPU cycles while in the background, and minimal memory.
There's no need for this - the gains are minimal to nonexistant.
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Charles said 12:02PM on 8-21-2008
That won't actually disable Dashboard, it's still running in the background.
As Gordon remarked, you can just drag the icon out of the dock. But Dashboard is still running in the background, consuming RAM and CPU cycles.
Fortunately there is a solution. There are Dashboard widgets like "DashQuit" that will terminate all Dashboard processes, and quit Dashboard itself.
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Fred S-S said 3:26PM on 8-21-2008
Charles - *you're* wrong. Dashboard only starts up if you open it. So, this is a useless tip.
Charles said 12:05PM on 8-21-2008
Joshua, you're wrong, Dashboard does consume CPU cycles while in the background. There were some notorious cases of poorly written widgets consuming excessive CPU cycles even while in the background. I recall one example of a weather widget that went berserk downloading weather maps repeatedly, consuming massive amounts of net bandwidth and CPU. That's why people came up with stuff like DashQuit in the first place.
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Charles said 12:09PM on 8-21-2008
A better approach:
Use the widget DashQuit. It quits the Dashboard, but if you hit F12 it starts again. This way you have all the advantages, it is inactive when not in use, and easily accessible when you need it.
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Charles said 12:11PM on 8-21-2008
Oops, sorry for the doublepost. It looked like my comment didn't get posted.
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Mike Piontek said 1:11PM on 8-21-2008
Dashboard does run in the background, sure... But not if you never launch it in the first place. Try it: restart your computer, or type killall Dock in Terminal. Then use your computer for a while, and activate Dashboard. It'll be very clear that none of your widgets were running.
The only reason I can see for this trick is if you have one of the new keyboards that have a dedicated Dashboard key, and you often hit it accidentally.
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mare said 1:20PM on 8-21-2008
Now I'm still waiting for that Terminal command that kills the Dock itself, for once and for all.
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Zombo said 11:17PM on 8-21-2008
Just use Activity Monitor to kill the Dock process (don't worry, it will immediately restart itself) -- it also kills all widgets and the Dashboard. Combined with disabling the hotkey and the only way the Dashboard will launch is if you choose to run it.
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Marmite turkey said 8:10AM on 8-22-2008
Is anybody SUCH a poweruser that dashboard is a barrier to their productivity? Genuine question. Or is this just tweaking for tweaking's sake?
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bcarter said 10:09AM on 8-25-2008
I've removed dashboard. Not because I am a "power user" or to "tweak" but because it has got to be the lamest idea Apple has ever come up with and I've wanted to kill the damn thing since the day they added it.
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sofia said 2:10AM on 8-26-2008
i deleted the app altogether, but now i kinda want it back. is there anyplace to download it? again?
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