Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Minimise all active windows
- Thread starter nad0102
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just a little tip for mastering an application’s menus and shortcuts, and with no need for Yahoo! or Google searching either.
Use the Help ▸ Search menu item (available in all but the most broken or abandoned applications). It even has its own shortcut: ⇧⌘/
So in Finder, hit that shortcut then type what you’re looking for, and the results include those that are hidden behind keyboard modifiers too. As you can see, it even suggest help topics (although I rarely find those useful).
There are applications that build on top of this, for example KeyCue ‘Keyboard shortcuts on Cue’. And CheatSheet ‘Know your short cuts’, but I haven’t used these much to be able to recommend either.
And if you were meaning to minimize all active windows in all open applications, there isn’t anything that does exactly that, but there’s the Show Desktop command. You can find and adjust the Show Desktop shortcut in System Preferences ▸ Mission Control ▸ Show Desktop (often set to F11).
Use the Help ▸ Search menu item (available in all but the most broken or abandoned applications). It even has its own shortcut: ⇧⌘/
So in Finder, hit that shortcut then type what you’re looking for, and the results include those that are hidden behind keyboard modifiers too. As you can see, it even suggest help topics (although I rarely find those useful).
There are applications that build on top of this, for example KeyCue ‘Keyboard shortcuts on Cue’. And CheatSheet ‘Know your short cuts’, but I haven’t used these much to be able to recommend either.
And if you were meaning to minimize all active windows in all open applications, there isn’t anything that does exactly that, but there’s the Show Desktop command. You can find and adjust the Show Desktop shortcut in System Preferences ▸ Mission Control ▸ Show Desktop (often set to F11).
This doesn't work on my MacBook Air
[doublepost=1499267850][/doublepost]
Thank you for your great reply. Much appreciated, Yes you are right I am looking for a show desktop function like in Windows which you can minimize all active windows to see a blank desktop. But it seems like F11 does the trick. Thanks
Do you mean "Finder" windows, the windows open from one or more apps, or some sort of combination?
This may or may not be better, but your MacBook Air’s trackpad has some neat tricks.
Show desktop
Spread your thumb and three fingers apart to show the desktop.
Many more gestures are shown on Apple’s guide, Use Multi-Touch gestures on your Mac.
The other thing you get with using trackpad gestures is a finer control compared to the using keyboard shortcuts, so if you perform the ‘finger spread’ slowly, you get to peek at your desktop, then you can reverse that to go back.
If you’re after a more permanent way to show the desktop, then switch to Finder (⌘⇥), hide all the other applications (⌥⌘H), finally you can minimize* all the Finder windows (⌥⌘M).
Final thought, it might be worth considering using Spaces. You could have a Space that is kept clear just for the desktop, and the trackpad gesture is beautifully simple too, just do a four-finger swipe to the left or right to go back and forth between Spaces.
To set it up, just bring up Mission Control (four-finger swipe up), then hit the plus button to add a new Space.
Idea taken from Ask Different: ‘What is an efficient way for developers / power users to use OSX window management and Spaces on a single screen?’
* I may flip flop around on the spelling of ‘minimize’ or ‘minimise’, as a Brit, the closest thing to our standard, the OED says either -ise or -ize are generally acceptable.