Matlab shows up twice on dock in macOS

when opening matlab it show two icons on the dock whether one of them is docked or not. only one icon leads the open instance, the other brings up matlab in the menu bar but doesnt open the window. closing one closes them both.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

This is normal for a range of MATLAB versions ending with R2024b (does not happen with R2025a Pre-release)

I seem to recall that for some combinations of active features, there can be more than two icons.

[Itai]

Got it, good to know it is a known issue and has been fixed, thanks!.

[Walter Roberson]

MATLAB R2025a uses different graphics technology than previous releases. So it was not a "bug fix" but rather a re-working of underlying code in a way that happens not to trigger creating multiple icons.

[Itai]

Well, I am part of a class in which we all installed the same combination of toolkits, and no one else with a Mac had this issue. So, I would say any unexpected behavior, especially one that is difficult to reproduce, would be classified as a bug.

Answer 2

[Anushka]

Hi @Itai,

As per my understanding, the issue does not seem to be with MATLAB but with macOS.

The following steps resolved the issue for me:

Open System Preferences > Dock > check "Minimize windows into application icon"

Hope it helps!