Catalina Dock removing Default Apple Apps

[LukeMason]

Good Morning, I'm trying to remove the Apple apps that appear on new account creation (eg. in Catalina, these are Maps, Photos, News, Podcasts, & TV).

We deploy a custom dock template via pkg in our environment, and we have a policy that's set for "once per user per computer" which pulls these dock itmes for new accounts, but I can't figure out how to get them removed from the guest user (at least not without creating another clone policy that just runs ongoing for the guest user, which seems like it would take more resources than it should...)

I remember in previous OS versions (eg. El Capitan) where there was a dock setup framework that you could just wipe an array from another plist somewhere and it would stop these "default Apple apps" from appearing, but I'm not sure what the deal is nowadays.

Anyways, if anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate some help with this.

[larry_barrett]

We run our policy at login and ongoing, that way it doesn't matter who is logging on. I can't help you much more as we use JAMFs built in Dock Items Policy, not a package.

[Laurent_Garinot]

Try using Dockutil - great tool.

https://github.com/kcrawford/dockutil

[MrRoboto]

Is Dockutil still a good solution? Looks like it hasn't been updated since Dec 2018.

[shaquir]

Hi @MrRoboto ,
I just wanted to confirm that docutil still works great in Catalina!

This is a glimpse of how I configure it for new Users in my environment:

#!/bin/bash
#New User docutil setup by Shaquir Tannis
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Safari' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Mail' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Contacts' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Notes' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Reminders' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Maps' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Photos' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'Messages' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'FaceTime' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'News' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'iTunes' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --remove 'App Store' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Company App Store.app --position 1 --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Google Chrome.app --position 2 --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Microsoft Outlook.app --position end --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Microsoft OneNote.app --before 'Microsoft Outlook' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Microsoft Excel.app --before 'Microsoft OneNote' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Microsoft PowerPoint.app --before 'Microsoft Excel' --allhomes
/usr/local/dockutil --add /Applications/Microsoft Word.app --before 'Microsoft PowerPoint' --allhomes

[pvcit]

We use dockutil as well but I just start with the --remove all and then add since Apple once in while adds a new icon with a sub build of their operating system.

[MrRoboto]

@shaquir @pvcit Thank for confirming! We having been using Dockutil with Outset since High Sierra. We are just testing in Catalina now and it seems to work okay. I was curious about the future of Dockutil since it's been a while since the last release. For now we are sticking with Outset2 as the latest version requires Python3, not sure if the same will apply to the next version of Dockutil.

[LukeMason]

@pvcit @shaquir @MrRoboto Hey Guys, thanks for replying and for your suggestions. We also use dockutil (for edits) but these apps that Apple throws in on top of our standard dock template trouble me sometimes. I'm glad to hear it still works in Catalina.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

[scottb]

Since Guest user data gets deleted, it makes sense that the Dock would be reset when Guest is logged into after altering the Dock.
What @larry_barrett said is the way to go - login and/or ongoing should fix that.

[GabeShack]

I had been using dockutil but it has been flaking out and sometimes not running. I assume I should be using outset. Going to have to figure that out i suppose. Anyone have a basic overview of the steps to getting outset installed and working with dockutil?
Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[Cayde-6]

Another happy user of dockitil