Live window previews for the GNOME dock.
Hover a running app in the dock to see its open windows — then switch, peek or close them without leaving the dock.
- Live thumbnails of every window, updating in real time
- Scrollable previews — readable thumbnails even with many windows; scroll with the mouse wheel, touchpad or scrollbar
- Full window titles — rest on a truncated title to read it in a tooltip
- Monitor filtering — optionally show only windows on the hovered dock's screen
- Peek — rest on a thumbnail to fade out other windows and see it in place
- Quick actions — click to switch, click again to minimize, middle-click or × to close
- Keyboard navigation — focus the dock with Ctrl+Alt+Tab, then use the arrow keys to open and browse previews
- Works with any dock — Dash to Dock, Ubuntu Dock or the built-in dash, on any screen edge
- Media controls — album art, title and ⏮ ⏯ ⏭ for apps playing music or video (Spotify, browsers, VLC…), even with no window open
- Configurable — delays, sizes, visible elements, opacity and animations
Requires GNOME Shell 47, 48, 49 or 50 (e.g. Ubuntu 24.10 or newer, Fedora 41 or newer). Works with the built-in dash, Dash to Dock, Ubuntu Dock, and docks that build on GNOME Shell's dash items (such as Dash to Panel).
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kaleabcodes/dock-hover-preview/main/install.sh | bashThen log out and back in — on Wayland, GNOME loads new extensions at login. Run the same command again to update.
Install from source
git clone https://github.com/kaleabcodes/dock-hover-preview.git
cd dock-hover-preview
./install.shUninstall
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kaleabcodes/dock-hover-preview/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --uninstallNote
Coming soon to extensions.gnome.org.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Hover a running app's dock icon | Show its window previews |
| Click a preview | Switch to that window |
| Click the focused window's preview | Minimize it |
| Rest on a preview | Peek at the window in place |
| Scroll over the previews | Browse windows that do not fit in the popup |
| Rest on a truncated window title | Read the full title |
| Middle-click a preview, or click × | Close the window |
| Drag a preview | Drop the window on a workspace in the overview |
| Scroll on the dock icon | Cycle through the app's windows (off by default) |
| Long-press the dock icon (touch) | Open the previews; a second long-press opens the app menu |
With the keyboard (dock icons focused with Ctrl+Alt+Tab, then Dock or Dash):
| Key | Result |
|---|---|
| Arrows along the dock | Move between icons; a running app's previews open after the hover delay |
| Arrow away from the dock (↑ for a bottom dock) | Move into the previews |
| Arrows along the previews, Home, End | Move between previews |
| Enter or Space | Switch to that window |
| Delete | Close the window |
| Tab / Shift+Tab | Move through previews, close buttons and media controls |
| Arrow toward the dock, or Esc | Back to the dock icon; Esc there closes the previews |
Open Extensions → Dock Hover Preview → Settings, or run:
gnome-extensions prefs dock-hover-preview@kaleabcodes.devUse the search button to find a setting. Reset All Settings asks for confirmation before restoring the defaults.
All settings
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hover delay | 300 ms | Time on an icon before the preview opens |
| Hide delay | 250 ms | Time the preview stays open after the pointer leaves |
| Current workspace only | On | Hide windows on other workspaces |
| Current monitor only | Off | Only show windows on the hovered dock's screen |
| Click focused window to minimize | On | Clicking the active window's preview minimizes it |
| Middle-click to close | On | Middle-clicking a preview closes the window |
| Drag previews to a workspace | On | Dragging a preview opens the overview to drop the window on a workspace |
| Scroll on icon cycles windows | Off | Scrolling on a dock icon switches between the app's windows |
| Peek at window | On | Fade out other windows while resting on a preview |
| Peek delay | 700 ms | Time on a preview before peeking |
| Preview width | 240 px | Maximum thumbnail width |
| Show titles / app icon / close button | On | Elements shown on each preview |
| Background opacity | 94 % | Popup background opacity |
| Animation duration | 150 ms | 0 turns animations off |
Moving between the dock icon and its popup has a brief grace period, so the preview stays open while crossing the gap, including diagonal movement.
- Nothing happens on hover — log out and back in after installing, then
check that the extension is enabled:
gnome-extensions info dock-hover-preview@kaleabcodes.dev - Errors — check the shell log:
journalctl -b -o cat _COMM=gnome-shell | grep -i dock-hover
Still stuck? Open an issue.
Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and the release process.
Released under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.
Made by Kaleab Tesfaye.