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You copy a file in Finder and drag it toward the Dock. A small pixel cat notices, reacts, and treats the gesture as feeding. That is the basic loop Dockitty introduces: a tiny companion that responds to ordinary desktop actions without asking for attention.
For a low-key animated Dock companion, not another tool
- Anyone who wants a light, animated presence in the Dock rather than another productivity widget.
- Users who already run several menu bar and Dock utilities and want something that stays out of the way.
- People who enjoy small behavioural details, such as the cat settling on top of app windows to nap in Window Napper mode.
- Macs shared by several people, since multiple cats can run at the same time.
The cat can roam your screen and die dramatically
- The animations cover sleep, running, jumping, attacking, and a dramatic death sequence. Not every action is subtle.
- Free-roaming mode means the cat can leave the Dock and move around the screen, which may overlap with open windows.
- Reactions to time of day and user actions are visual rather than configurable in depth.
Why the cat ignores files you drag over it
A few behaviours tend to puzzle people in the first hour of use.
Cat stops reacting to drags. Sometimes the cat appears indifferent when you drag a file over it. In most cases the app is not registered as the active drag target because another window had focus just before the drag. Click the desktop once, then try the drag again. If the cat is in free-roam mode, bring it back to the Dock first through the menu bar icon.
Multiple cats and screen clutter. Running several cats at once is straightforward, but if one is set to roam and another stays docked, their behaviour can overlap in confusing ways. The roaming cat may walk across the screen while the docked cat sleeps, giving the impression the cat teleported. Assign each cat a distinct mode: keep one docked, let one roam, and avoid mixing cursor-follow with screen-edge roaming for two cats simultaneously. The settings panel lists each active cat by its launch order.
Window Napper cat blocking a click. When the cat settles on a window to nap, it can land on top of a button or a text field. The cat is not a click-through element. A quick double-tap of the Escape key dismisses the cat back to the Dock without closing the app. Alternatively, switch the walk mode to Dock-only from the menu and the cat retreats.
Bath mode not triggering. Bath mode has no dedicated button. It activates when the cat enters a specific idle sequence after a file drag interpreted as “messy food.” Not every drag triggers it, and the sequence cannot be forced. If the cat has not bathed in a while, try dragging a larger file — the animation logic treats file size as a rough proxy for meal size.
A writer's afternoon companion
Someone who writes long-form copy in Ulysses or iA Writer might open Dockitty at 14:30 and forget it is there. The cat stays in the Dock through three hours of drafting, cycling through sleep poses and the occasional stretch. Around 17:00 the writer drags an exported PDF toward the Downloads folder and overshoots, grazing the cat. The cat pounces on the file as if fed. The writer stops, drags a second small text file on purpose, and watches the cat bathe. It is a five-second pause between paragraphs — no notification, no gamification, just a pixel creature reacting to a completely accidental gesture. Later, closing the MacBook lid triggers the dramatic death sequence, which the writer has come to expect as a small ritual at the end of the working day.
One cat, one screen edge, zero slide distractions
During a Keynote rehearsal, a presenter wants a single cat moving along the bottom screen edge without distracting from slides. Here is the sequence from launch to presentation-ready state.
- Launch Dockitty. The cat appears in the Dock in its default idle pose.
- Click the menu bar icon and open Settings.
- In the Walk mode section, select Screen edge and pick Bottom from the edge picker.
- Set speed to the slowest available step. The cat will now stroll rather than sprint.
- Under Reactions, disable Jump on drag and Attack cursor. This prevents sudden vertical movement that could pull focus during a slide transition.
- Close Settings. Move the cursor to the bottom of the screen and leave it still for three seconds. The cat notices and begins following the edge path.
- Start the Keynote rehearsal. The cat walks horizontally along the bottom bezel area, occasionally pausing to sit, without overlapping slide content.
- After the rehearsal, open Settings again and switch the walk mode back to Dock only. The cat returns to its usual spot.
The cat never enters the presentation frame because the bottom edge setting respects the display boundary. If the presenter needs a completely distraction-free run, quitting the app from the menu bar removes the cat in under a second, and relaunching restores the last-used walk mode.
