This can be done, but you cannot hide just the dock per app. It will hide both the Dock and the Menu bar per app.
You just have to make a quick, simple edit to the plist file for the application. Check out this article from Mac OS X Hints:
To hack an app so that when it's active, the menubar and dock are hidden, you need to find its info.plist file. Control-click on the program in question, choose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu, and then navigate into the Contents folder.
Once there, add the following to the file:
<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>4</integer>
Be sure that it goes in alphabetical order, otherwise it won't work (i.e. LSUIPresentationMode goes after LSMinimumSystemVersion but before NSAppleScriptEnabled). Save the file and enjoy.
You can change the value (in the example, it is 4) to 0 - 4. Apple's documentation has more details:
Value: 0
Normal mode. In this mode, all standard system UI elements are visible. This is the default value.
Value: 1
Content suppressed mode. In this mode, system UI elements in the content area of the screen are hidden. UI elements may show themselves automatically in response to mouse movements or other user activity. For example, the Dock may show itself when the mouse moves into the Dock’s auto-show region.
Value: 2
Content hidden mode. In this mode, system UI elements in the content area of the screen are hidden and do not automatically show themselves in response to mouse movements or user activity.
Value: 3
All hidden mode. In this mode, all UI elements are hidden, including the menu bar. Elements do not automatically show themselves in response to mouse movements or user activity.
Value: 4
All suppressed mode. In this mode, all UI elements are hidden, including the menu bar. UI elements may show themselves automatically in response to mouse movements or other user activity. This option is available only in Mac OS X 10.3 and later.
Important Note: In Mac OS X 10.5+ the method explained below only works for apps which are not using the "Code Signing" feature which was introduced in 10.5 to ensure authenticity of running code. The result of applying this method to a signed app differs; it might cause the app to crash upon starting or results it unexpected behavior.
You can edit the file Info.plist contained in the directory of each App (e.g. /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/Info.plist)by adding the following lines:
<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
For example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
<key>BuildMachineOSBuild</key>
<string>11G63</string>
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
...
...
</dict>
</plist>
When you will start the App you will see the icon just for one second and the it will disappear.
Dockless and Dock Dodger do this change automatically in apps.
Best Answer
This solution worked for me, but it might depend on the application in question. I tried it with a 3rd party app called "Burn" and it worked.
Go to your applications folder and right click (control-click) on the app you wanna hide from the dock.
Click on
Show contents. You should now be able to see "inside" the app's files.Open the
Info.plistfile in theContentsfolder with TextEdit (right click -> "Open with...")Go to the very bottom of the file and find the last two lines which should say:
Now insert this before these two lines and save the file.
After this the app's dock icon will not be shown anymore. Keep in mind that you will need to use the Activity Monitor or Terminal (
killall <appname>) to quit the app if you close the window.If closing the window quits the app, you can press
cmd + hto hide the window. This should make your app completely invisible.To make it visible again, just remove those two lines again and the app should behave like before.
Source: Link