Hide Adium (or any other app's) icon in the dock

I find it really annoying how the Adium icon is always at the dock being useless:

because to open the contact list, you can just use the status bar item, (the dock icon is just a waste of space according to me):

So is there any way to remove the dock icon of Adium (or preferably any app) and only keep the status bar item (fully functional)?

This may seem like a duplicate of Hide an application's dock icon but that answer hides the status bar item as well, after that nobody answered. Have any new techniques surfaced since 2011?

I would rather have a technique without another app, but if thats the only option then that'll have to do...

Solution 1:

I achieved this with a simple Terminal command:

defaults write /Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Info.plist LSUIElement true

Per defaults(1), "Defaults allows users to read, write, and delete Mac OS X user defaults from a command-line shell." So this is actually doing the same thing as the other answers here, but without manually editing the plist file, which makes it much safer, not to mention easier (and scriptable).

Solution 2:

Yes there is a way : Simply go go the App, right click and show package contents. Go into Application/Contents and open the info.plist with a simple text editor. Add these Lines under the dict key :

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

Yes, there is a difference. NSUIElement is an old key. Since Apple introduced Launchd services, they use the LSUIElement key. This is also working for Adium, I just tested it.

If It says it can't save the file, simply copy it out of the folder to you desktop, edit it, and move it back into the App.

Keep in Mind, that with the LSUI element, the App is working in the Background. It keeps the menu icon, but your app won't appear in the App-Switcher (CMD+Tab) nor in the Force-Quit Menu.

Here is a Screenshot on how I did it :

Solution 3:

I've found a way that works for me.

Originally, the user chillin told me I could just add this to the Info.plist file in between the dict tags using TextEdit:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

But all I saw was some gibberish (look below for screenshots).

But then I installed XCode and opened the Info.plist file in Property List Editor.

To open Info.plist, go to your HD (eg. Macintosh HD) and open the Applications folder - Macintosh HD > Applications > Right Click Adium > Open Package Contents > Contents > Right Click Info.plist and open with Property List Editor. This will open this:

Then, click Add Item at the top and name the key as LSUIElement and the value checkbox should be checked (ie. 1 or True).

LSUIElement:

Specifies whether the app is an agent app, that is, an app that should not appear in the Dock or Force Quit window.

^Source

Note: When you click the value field, the key is automatically renamed to Application is agent (UIElement)

It should then look like this:

Then you can open up Adium and it will still be in the Menu Bar but no longer in the Dock!

This is the Info.plist file I saw after using Property List Editor (I've highlighted one of the parts that changed):

As I said before, the method that the user chillin said worked for a few people but this worked for me. This is what I saw when chillin answered this question:

... where as I should have seen something like this (image via hotdigitalnews):

Solution 4:

Previous answer is close, but no cigar. Plist files use a key/value format, declaring the type of the key. The correct code is:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>true</string>

Stick these in before the </dict> </plist> lines, and voilà. This works for me on High Sierra.

Some extra help for the less experienced.........

Apple, as usual, makes this sort of control over your own computer difficult when not impossible. Here's what you have to do:

1. Make sure you are logged in as an Administrator.
2. In Finder, under Applications, find the relevant app. Right-click > select "Show Package Contents" > select "Contents." You should now see the directory containing your app, which should include a file called info.plist.
3. Double-click the .plist file. This should open the file in TextEdit.
4. As soon as you try to do anything to the file, you will get a message saying "You don’t have permission to write to the folder that the file 'Info' is in" and offering to let you edit a duplicate. Click "Duplicate."
5. Make the edit as above.
6. Save the (duplicate) file to your desktop. Name it info.plist. (Be careful not to let Finder change the extension to .txt, or add "copy" to the name. If in doubt, uncheck "Hide extension" in the lower left of the Save window.)
7. Copy this newly-edited file back to the "Contents" folder you found in Step 2.

N.B. I am skipping the ridiculous number of times you will have to enter your password.