Alternatives To Minimizing Windows On a Mac

Minimizing windows in macOS is a common way to deal with Desktop clutter. But many long-time Mac users instead use techniques like app hiding, quitting apps, multiple Desktop Spaces and more instead.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you alternatives to minimizing windows on your Mac. 
I know a lot of Mac users are in the habit of minimizing windows when they no longer need them. This clears them away so they have more space on their screen for other windows and they can easily bring that window back without having to close the document or quit the app. But a lot of longtime Mac users, like myself, never minimize windows. We use other techniques to get windows out of the way. 
First let's talk about what minimizing is and what it isn't. A lot people mistakening say they are minimizing an app. But you don't minimize apps. You minimize windows. For instance here I've got three Pages windows. Three separate documents opened up in Pages at the same time. If I click the yellow button here to minimize you can see it minimizes down to the Dock but the other two Pages windows are still here. So I certainly didn't minimize Pages. Pages isn't minimized. It's the window that's minimized. But it's easy to see how that mistake is made because in a lot of apps you only have one window open. Like here with Notes typically you just have one Notes window opened. A lot of other apps, like Mail for instance, are the same. So when you minimize the one Notes window it feels like you're minimizing Notes. 
Now a typical situation is you've got a ton of windows on your Desktop. I'm going to use Mission Control by using Control Up Arrow and you can see all the windows here. There are three Safari windows, three Pages windows, and a Notes window here. So, it looks like quite a jumble when they are all together. I can get some of these out of the way by minimizing them and then having more space for the rest. Then if I look in the Dock here I can see all the minimized windows and one by one bring them back if I want. You can also bring them back in the Window Menu. I can minimize this Pages window, go to Window here and I can see the little diamond there indicating that that is minimized and I can select it and it will bring it back. 
But what you can't do is bring it back by using the App Switcher. So if I minimize this one Pages window I have two other Pages windows there. If I use the App Switcher and I go to, say, Notes and I go back to Pages it only just brings the existing Pages' windows to the front. It doesn't bring the minimized one up. It doesn't unminimized. 
But before I show you true alternatives to minimizing I do want to show one way you can change how minimize works and can make things a little bit better for some. Notice when I minimize a lot of windows that they all go to the right side of the Dock. So they are all here. Instead of doing that there's a setting, if you go to System Settings and then you go to Desktop & Dock look for Minimize Windows into Application Icon. Turn that On. Now that's not going to change the existing ones. Let's bring them all back here. But now if I were to, say, minimize the Safari window instead of going to the right side of the Dock it goes into the Safari icon. In other words it doesn't take up any space at all in the Dock. I can click and hold Safari here and I can see the list of windows and which ones are minimized with that little diamond next to them. I can also do that in the Window Menu in Safari. I can bring them back that way. But otherwise I don't end up with a long list of minimized windows in the Dock. 
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Okay, so if a lot of Mac users like myself don't minimize what do we do when we've got a lot of windows opened. So I think the first strategy we use is actually Hide instead of minimizing. With any app you can go to the Apps Menu here and you can see Hide and it is usually Command H. This allows you to quickly hide an app. So this will hide all of the windows of the app. I have three Safari windows here. If I use Command H all three of them are hidden. For an app where there is just one window, like this Notes app right here, hiding and minimizing are virtually the same. Just a Command H and you've hidden it. Now bringing it back can be done by either switching back to the app with the App Switcher. So Command and Tab and then continue to hold the Command down and Tab to get the app you want and then release Command and then by switching back to the app all of the windows now are unhidden. So hiding an app hides all the windows of the app. Unhiding it unhides all the windows of the app. 
But you can also unhide by doing anything you would normally do to launch the app. So if I Hide Safari and say I go to launch it again by doing to the Dock, if it is already launched it is just hidden. It basically unhides it. You don't have to worry about whether it is running or not, or hidden or not. One action will either run or unhide the app. So I can Hide it here and let's say I use Spotlight to launch apps. If I simply use Spotlight to launch Safari, Safari is already running, but doing the same action to run it will just unhide it. 
Now another thing you can do is Quit the app. But wait a minute, I've got three different Pages documents open in three different windows. If I Quit how am I going to reopen all of those. Well, it does it automatically. In Pages here if I Quit, just a quick Command Q, and then I launch Pages again notice how it reopens all of those documents, all of those windows, and they return to the exact same position. It takes a second or two to longer than unhiding but really not that long at all. Most apps launch and reopen documents almost instantly. Yes, there are going to be apps like Video Editors and things like Photoshop and all that take a significant amount of time to launch. So for those hiding is a better option. But for a lot of apps quitting works just as well. For instance here I am in Notes. If I Quit Notes and relaunch it you can see it really didn't take much more time than hiding it and unhiding it. It even works for apps that don't have documents. For instance in Safari you don't have documents. I've got locations. I've got three different locations opened up in three different windows. But yet if I Quit Safari, all of those are gone. Safari isn't running anymore. But if I launch it again it's going to bring those windows back in the same position and reload those pages. 
But what if that's not happening for you. What if when you Quit and you relaunch the app none of the documents come back. Well it is probably because you changed the Setting. Go into System Settings and then go to Desktop & Dock. Look for Close Windows When Quitting an Application. If that's turned On then when you Quit it's basically the same thing as individually closing each window and then quitting the app. If you've got it Off then basically the app just quits. When you relaunch the app all the windows resume where they were. 
Now what if you just want to get one window out of the way.  Well, then you think minimizing is the only option. But you can also just Close the window. Like I said before it doesn't really take long for most apps and most documents to reopen. Instead of minimizing just click the red button and close it or use Command W for Close and it closes it. It's not hard to reopen it. You can go here to File, Open Recent and chances are it's the top item here. You can see it opens it pretty fast. You can also go to the Apple Menu and look at Recent Items and find it right here. You can even go into the Dock here, click and hold, and then you get Recent Documents listed here. So you can select that one that way and reopen it. There are so many different ways and for a lot of apps and a lot of documents it's going to take about the same amount of time it would take to minimize a window and then bring it back. 
Now another option you've got is using Mission Control to actually create multiple desktop spaces. So I'm going to use Control Up Arrow. There are also trackpad gestures for this. You get Mission Control here. I've just got the one desktop. But I can click the Plus Button at the top right and add a second Desktop. So if I wanted to get, say, this window out of the way I can Drag it to another desktop. Maybe this window is also in the way. Now when I go back to the Desktop I don't have those two windows here on this desktop. They are here on this desktop. I can use Control Left and Right Arrows to go between the desktops very easily. In fact if I were to switch to an app and there's no open window here, like Notes, Notes, is on Desktop 1, if I actually click on Notes in the Dock it will go to Desktop 1 because that's where the one window for Notes is located. I can even use the App Switcher and if I switch to Notes it is going to take me back there. I don't even have to think about the fact that it is on a separate space. 
So this is another way of thinking about having lots of windows and not enough screen space. If you've got a Safari window and a Pages window for a project you're working on you can have them on one Desktop and you can have other windows on another Desktop. If you're doing research and have a Safari window open to a webpage and a Pages window open for taking notes you can have those together on one desktop and they won't get in the way of other things you've got going on on another desktop space. 
Another way to handle this is just to use Full Screen which is basically the same as a desktop space except there is only one window on that desktop. In the View Menu you'll find Enter Full Screen which is simply the Globe or fn key and F. When I do that the current window will go into a Full Screen space. So Control Up Arrow shows me Mission Control and I can see this space here is just Notes. There is no Desktop for it. It is just the Notes Window as its own space. Which means that Notes is there all by itself. Nothing is in its way. On the other spaces Notes isn't getting in the way of these windows. Like before, if I were to use the App Switcher to go to Notes it knows to go to that Full Screen space. The same thing for switching to the app in any other way, like using the Dock. 
Of course you can use Split View as well if you prefer. So, for instance, I can hover over the Green Button here and say I want to go Full Screen, but just on left here, and then I'm going to choose this Pages document here for the right. So now I've got a split view space which is like Full Screen but two windows. It's important to remember, just like with minimizing, full screen isn't about an app. It's about a window. So this is a full screen window and this is a split view with two windows in it. So now I've gotten these two windows out of the way. I can do research in Safari and take notes here in Pages and these two windows are not getting in the way anymore with whatever I've got left over here on my Desktop space. 
So if you're using a lot of different apps with a lot of different windows on your Mac and you're looking for better ways to handle all those windows, other than minimizing, there are a lot of different tools for you to use. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 7 Responses to “Alternatives To Minimizing Windows On a Mac”

Jack Bibo

3 weeks ago

What a great video: so many good ideas to work simultaneously with several apps and windows. Thanks!

Jim Terrinoni

This video clearly communicates a problem that has so many options the solutions can be exponential if not confusing.

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

Joe M

Been using Mac now since 2008 and I learn something new each time Gary posts his videos. Keep posting Gary! Great job!

GazzaDownUnder

What I find most useful (when I have lots of apps and windows of many apps open) is to use the "Hide Others" menu option.
The keyboard shortcut is: OPTION + COMMAND + H
For example, I first choose the Application I wish to work in (either by clicking the icon in the Dock, or by using Application Switcher (COMMAND + TAB key); and THEN use OPTION + COMMAND + H to "hide" all the other apps, thus reducing background screen clutter.
Activate App Expose to see all windows within that app. 😀

Bruce and Carol Peck

What do you think about Stage Manager as another option?

Gary Rosenzweig

Bruce and Carol: It depends on your personal preference. Try it. If you like it, then it is for you. If not, then there are plenty of other options for handling multiple windows.