10 Ways To Switch Between Windows In the Same App On a Mac

If you have several documents or windows open in the same app there are many ways to switch between these windows.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at all the different ways that you can switch between Windows in the same app.
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So a commonly asked question, particularly by users that have switched from Windows to Mac, is how you can switch between Windows, not of different apps, but in the same app. Like you have several documents open in Pages or several browser windows open in Safari. 
The first way I'm going to show you is the one familiar to longtime Mac users. If you've been using Macs for a longtime like me then you may work this way naturally. If you're new to Mac this may seem like a very strange way to work. That is to simply have different windows open, like this on a regular desktop not in full screen mode or anything like that, and have them overlapping each other, like this. You can see how easy it is to switch between windows. Just find the window you want to switch to and click on it. You can easily switch between two windows by clicking on that window. You kind of arrange things like a true desktop, like these are pieces of paper on the desk and you simply click one to bring it to the front. It's not for everybody but certainly is the simplest way to switch between windows in the same app.
Now what about if you've minimized a window. I don't like using minimized windows but I know some users who do. If you minimize a window like this then it simply works by allowing you to click on the windows that are not minimized. Anyone that is you can go into the Dock and click it right there. 
Now what happens if the windows are arranged in such a way that you can't see all of them. So now if there is no way for me to click on that window to bring it up. Well, you can access any window being used by the app by going to the Window Menu. It's always going to add a list of all of the open windows here at the bottom. So you can select the one that you want. So I can easily bring that one to the front by selecting it there. It works with the minimized windows as well. If I minimize this window here, I go to Window and you could see here I have a checkmark next to the window that is the current front most window. I've got other windows listed without a checkmark. I have this diamond next to any window that is minimized. I can select it and it will bring it up. 
You can also find all your windows in the File Menu under Open Recent. Here you can see all of the windows that I currently have open but also other documents that I recently had open. It doesn't distinguish between currently opened documents and recently opened documents. They are all there. So if I want to go back to this one, this one is minimized. But if I select it it will unminimize it. I can also use it to get to a currently opened window. I can use it to get to a document that I recently had opened but don't currently have open. 
There's also a keyboard shortcut that allows you to go through the different windows. You're probably familiar with Command Tab which allows you to switch between apps. But Command and then the key above Tab, it's a little back tic with a tilde on top on U.S. keyboards, that one allows you to go between the currently opened windows. Now it doesn't handle minimized windows. If I minimize this window here it just takes me between the two currently open windows, not anything that is minimized. As I said before, I don't like to minimize windows. I actually, in practice, never do that. But I know a lot of people do. Still in this situation you don't really need to. I can just use Command and Back Tic to switch between windows and whatever window I'm not using is going to move towards the back.
If I find a window is getting in the way it's usually because I'm not using it really right now. I mean if I'm using it it's not getting in the way. So I'll just Close it and then open it again like that. There's really no problem with doing this. A lot of people like to keep windows open because they think, well, I may need this later on. Let me keep it open and I'll minimize it. But instead of minimizing it why not just Close it and then open it again any normal way you would or using Recents.
Now another tool you can use is Mission Control which is what we usually think of when dealing with multiple desktops. But even if you just have one desktop like this you could use Mission Control. I'm going to use Control and Up Arrow to bring it up. It will show you all of your open windows. Then you could select the one that you want. It works with all of your apps. So let's say I have several apps open. It will work with all of your visible windows. So I'm going to use Mission Control here, Control Up Arrow, and you could see here I've got my Pages windows and two Numbers windows, and a window from another app here. So I select whatever window I want to jump to. But keep in mind it only works with apps that are visible. So if I, say, go to Numbers and use Command H to hide it and then I do Mission Control. I won't see the Numbers window here.
In addition to a keyboard shortcut there are other ways to access Mission Control. For instance, on the trackpad you can bring up Mission Control under More Gestures here. I've got it set to Swipe Up with 3 fingers. So I can easily get to Mission Control with the gesture. A similar thing is to use App Expose which the keyboard shortcut, by default, is Control Down Arrow. This will bring up just the windows in the current app. You can click to select which one you want. In addition, it shows you recent documents down here below. So if you have just closed a window you can easily get to it here. This is useful because unlike Mission Control you can use the keyboard to select a window. I'll use, say, Up Arrow to go up and then Right Arrow to go right. Select this window with Return and it brings it to the front. 
In System Preferences there is also a gesture you can enable for App Expose. So swipe down with 3 fingers if I wanted to enable that. 
Now there is kind of an ultimate way to access any window in an app. That is to use the Dock. A lot of people don't think to look in the Dock down here. But if you click and hold an icon in the Dock you'll get a list of the open windows. Notice here that I've got recent documents and they show as documents with the icon. But these three show as windows because they are currently opened windows. I can switch to anyone that I want. Now you don't have to click and hold here. You can Control Click and this menu will come up instantly. You could also right click with a mouse or two-finger click on a trackpad. Then if something is minimized, let's say let's minimize this window here, I can still use it and notice how it gives me that little diamond there showing this is minimized. This is the current window and this is another open window. So I can unminimized like that and bring it back. 
Now today a lot of us like to work with windows full screen. Remember windows are full screen, not apps. So if I were to make this full screen, I'll do that by simply clicking the green button, this one window is now full screen. If I bring up Mission Control with Control Up Arrow, you could see I've got my Desktop and this one window full screen. The regular desktop still has the other two open windows. Those aren't full screen. But let's make them full screen. I'm going to make this one full screen and I'll go back here and make this one full screen. Now you can see with Mission Control it shows me three full screen windows, all of them from Pages. I can switch between any one of them by simply clicking on it or using the Mission Control shortcut, Control left and Control right arrows. So I can go between all of these full screen windows using Control Left and Control Right. It still works if I use some of those other techniques. So if I use window and then select that you can see how it jumps right to that window. But Command and Back Tic does not work with full screen windows like this but the Dock does. I can easily select one and it will jump to it. On the other hand App Expose doesn't. It doesn't do anything if you're in full screen mode like that. In System Preferences there is also a gesture for doing that. You can use this right here, a swipe between full screen apps, swipe left or right with three fingers to make it easy to get between those windows.
Another way besides having individual windows on a desktop of having full screen windows each in its own space, that is to use Tabs. Tabs are something you may be very familiar with in browsers. But you can use Tabs in other apps as well. So, for instance, here in Pages I could go to Window and I could say merge all windows. Now I've got one window and that has multiple Tabs in it. I can easily switch between these by simply clicking on these here. There are also keyboard shortcuts. If I look here I can go to the next Tab with Control Tab and a previous tab with Shift Control Tab. So Control Tab takes me between all of these tabs up here. 
Other methods work as well. With the Window Menu I can jump to a tab that way. If I were to go to Open Recents and do that it would jump to the correct tab there as well. This also works great in conjunction with full screen. I can take this window full screen and notice how I've got these 3 tabs here in a full screen window. It's a nice way to work. If you go into System Preferences and then to General you'll see here Prefer Tabs and then it is set to in Full Screen by default, I believe. But you could say Always so that every time you open up a new document in Pages it just adds new tabs to the current window. One big disadvantage to tabs though is being able to see two things at the same time. So if you want to refer to one document while working on the other of course you can't do that in Tabs. You could still have multiple documents open in one window and then take another window here. I'll Control Click on it and say Move Tabs to New Window and I could have this one document in one window and these two documents as Tabs in this window. 
So I hope this gives you some ideas of better ways to work with multiple documents or windows in the same app. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 4 Responses to “10 Ways To Switch Between Windows In the Same App On a Mac”

robert gramling

2 years ago

Had my new MacBook Pro (M1pro 16") about a month now. Some trouble with saving fotos (not screen shots) in safari. Finally learn the two finger medium press for save to photos, but then it kept going to the photos page and staying there. Close photos, manually back to dock, then back to the safari and continue. Searched this video and learned to go directly back to the dock and tap safari. After 3-4 of those, returned to safari by itself. Machine Learning?
THX Gary ! I WILL be back. Bob

Liam

Hi Gary, how do I get that top screen to open up that shows different desktops? You had two up there, one of your normal desktop, and one of the full screen I believe it was pages.

Thanks much,
Liam

Gary Rosenzweig

Liam: You activate Mission Control by using Control+Up Arrow. See https://macmost.com/mac-basics-mission-control.html

Elizabeth Reiher

Thank you. I didn't think I was going to learn anything new on this topic but I DEFINITELY did. Thanks so much for the clear explanations and illustrations of usage.

Comments Closed.

10 Ways To Switch Between Windows In the Same App On a Mac

Comments: 4 Responses to “10 Ways To Switch Between Windows In the Same App On a Mac”

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