Hiding or Showing the PaperCut Icon in the Dock on macOS

There are a couple of options for tidying up the Dock in macOS depending on what version of PaperCut you’re running:

Hide the PCClient.app Icon in the Dock for Mac clients (all versions of PaperCut)

Note that in recent versions of PaperCut MF and NG, this is already set, so the dock icon will be hidden by default. However, users will still see the ‘P’ icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen by default.

1. Install the PaperCut Client for Mac
2. Right click or Control-Click the PCClient.app application
3. Select ‘Show Package Contents’
4. Select the ‘Contents’ folder
5. Open the ‘Info.plist’
6. Add the following into two new lines as shown in the screenshot below (or remove them if you’re wanting to show the PCClient icon in the dock).
   <key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
7. Save the file and then restart the client.

At that point, the app should be hidden from the running apps section of the dock.

Additionally, if you make this change on the server shared version of the PCClient.app as detailed in the User Client installation steps, then when you perform local installs or use the client-local-install.app, it will have the modified Info.plist file too.

Hide the PCClient.app Balance Window

Previously you could configure the key: minimized=Y in the config.properties file as per the User Client Options

In versions of the client prior to 14.2, this would start the PaperCut Mac Client in a truly ‘minimized’ state - you would see the Balance Window in the minimized windows section of the macOSDock. Clicking on that would bring the Balance Window back into view.

With version 14.2 or later, setting minimized=Y means that the balance window does not appear at all - even in the minimized windows section of the macOS Dock. To view the Balance Window, you can click on the ‘P’ icon - the PaperCut menulet in the top menu bar - which will then display the balance window. You can then use the red ‘x’ on the window, or cmd-w to close the Balance Window again.

Hiding both! (using the settings above together)

With version 14.2 or later of the client, if you use both of the settings above, you’ll have a clutter-free experience of the client where there will be no ‘running app’ icons in the Dock at all. The only visual cue of the PaperCut Client running will be the PaperCut ‘P’ icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Clicking the ‘P’ menulet icon will display the Balance Window. Command-clicking or right clicking the icon will show the ‘Open’ and ‘Exit’ menus.

Below is a screenshot showing the menu bar ‘P’ icon and the client balance window.

What about icons in the macOS menubar?

As of version 19.2.2 of PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF, neither the PaperCut User Client nor Print Deploy Client support native hiding of their respective menubar icons on macOS. With that said, there are a number of free third party tools which can be used to hide whichever menubar icons you please. My personal favourite is Dozer, which if configured appropriately can completely hide any icons you consider unsightly, whilst also not displaying any icons of its own in their stead!

See also:

• Deploying the Mac OS client