10 tips for managing minimized windows

Do you minimize your windows with abandon, crowding your Dock with miniature documents? Do you rarely minimize anything, crowding your screen with multiple windows? Knowing the big and small options for this basic window-wrangling feature can save you both time and space.

1. Minimize windows with a double-click in the title bar

When you want to minimize a screenwide window, you don’t have to travel over to its yellow minimize button or let go of your mouse to use the Command-M shortcut.

You have another option: Go to the Dock pane of System Preferences and check Double-click a window’s title bar to minimize. From then on, you’ll have that option, too.

2. Minimize a background window

A window’s control buttons work even if the window is in the background. That means you can de-clutter your screen by clicking a window’s yellow minimize button without clicking on the window to bring it forward first.

You can even use the title-bar double-click trick described above to shrink a background window if you combine it with another window-handling trick. Pressing Command lets you drag a background window around without bringing it forward, so pressing Command while double-clicking a background window’s title bar minimizes the window without activating it.

3. Prevent minimized windows from crowding the Dock

Does a Dock full of tiny, impossible-to-identify windows strike you as a waste of space? Go to the System Preferences Dock pane and select Minimize windows into application icon. A window will zoom “into” its app’s icon instead of seeking its own spot in the Dock.

4. Retrieve a minimized window

So once you’ve minimized a window, what’s the best way to get it back? You have three basic choices. Click the minimized window in the Dock. Control-click the app’s Dock icon and select the window from the menu that appears. Or, if the app has a Window menu, choose the window from there.

Menu choices are often more convenient to use when you have multiple windows minimized, because you can scan their names quickly. Even if you don’t minimize windows into their app icons, they’ll be listed in the icon’s menu. (Minimized windows are marked with a diamond in both icon menus and an app’s Window menu.)

When you have umpteen minimized windows, however, a trip to Mission Control is often the easiest and quickest way to retrieve one—a procedure worth its own, separate tip.

5. Use Mission Control to access minimized windows

If you’re a heavy-duty minimizer, the best way to manage your minimized windows is in the Application Windows view of Mission Control. You can see all your windows at once, their thumbnails are large enough to let you identify a document at a glance, and you can retrieve them with a mouse-button, trackpad, or keyboard approach.

How do you get to Mission Control’s window view? Use Apple’s System Preferences to set up several ways, and use whichever one is most convenient one at any given time. To begin, select Apple Menu > System Preferences.

Mission Control pane: Use the pop-up menus next to ‘Application windows’ to set a basic keyboard command and/or mouse-button options.

Keyboard pane: If the shortcuts offered by the Mission Control pane aren’t to your liking, invent your own. Click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, click Mission Control on the left, and then check the Application windows checkbox on the right to activate it. To change the default keyboard shortcut, click Application windows to select it (checking it doesn’t actually select it); click the current shortcut to make it editable, and then press the shortcut you want.

Trackpad pane: My favorite way to access Mission Control’s Application Windows view is a trackpad swipe. Click the More Gestures tab in this pane, check the App Exposé option to turn it on, and then click the menu below it to select a swipe option.

When you go to Mission Control’s Application Windows view with your shortcut, you’ll see the app’s open windows as large icons and the minimized apps as miniature icons, or thumbnails, in a row along the bottom of the screen.

Retrieve a window by clicking on it. Or, use the down-arrow key to move from the large windows to the minimized thumbnails, and then the right and left arrow keys to select one; press Return to retrieve it.

6. Minimize all windows for an application

When you have a bunch of windows open in an application and want to minimize all of them at once, add the Option key to any of the methods for minimizing a single window. Option-click a window’s yellow Minimize button. Press Command-Option-M. Or, Option-double-click a window’s title bar if you’ve turned on that capability as described in the first tip.

7. Retrieve all windows for an application

Adding the Option key can also change some of the ways you retrieve a minimized window into a “retrieve all” operation. Option-click a minimized window in the Dock to retrieve all the minimized windows for its application. Or, Option-click one of the minimized window thumbnails in Mission Control to open all the windows for the application.

8. Close a minimized window without retrieving it first

You can close minimized documents from Microsoft Office apps without first retrieving them from the Dock (I haven’t found any other apps that provide this occasionally handy option). Control-click (or right-click or use a two-finger tap) on the window’s icon, and then choose Close from the pop-up menu. If the document hasn’t been saved, the window opens in its app so that you can save it.

9. Open a minimized window on the current desktop

Say you’ve set things up so that Microsoft Word is running on one desktop and Safari is on another. (For more information, read about multiple desktops and Mission Control). You’ve done your research in Safari and minimized some informative windows into the Dock along the way. You’re in Word and you want to see one of those windows side by side with your Word document so you can make notes.

The step-by-familiar-step way to do this starts with clicking the minimized window, which opens it and moves you to Safari. Then you enter Mission Control via your favorite method, where you drag the now unminimized Safari window from the current desktop to the desktop where Word lives. Finally, you click the Word desktop to move to it and come out of Mission Control.

Here’s the clever way: While in Word, Command-click the minimized Safari window to open it into the current desktop.

10. Retrieve a recently minimized window

Did you mean to hit Command-N for a new window but hit Command-M instead, minimizing an existing window? Wouldn’t it be nice simply to press a keyboard combo to get the window back when you’re working on a 27-inch screen and you’re far away from the Dock? OS X still offers no built-in method for doing this.

There is, however, a shortcut for retrieving a recently minimized window in an app other than the one you’re working in. Press Command-tab to open the Application Bar and move to the application you want by pressing the Tab or tilde (

) key. With the Command key still held down, press Option; then, keeping the Option key down, release the Command key. Presto! The selected program comes to the foreground, and its most recently minimized window opens. (This is a lot easier than it sounds—especially with a little practice.)

So how does that help when you want a minimized window back in the current application? Simply press Command-Tab to move to another program, release the keys, and press Command-Tab again to move back to your original program, pressing Option before you release Command.

Bonus tip: In many applications, if you try this Option-key trick when there are no open or minimized windows, you’ll get a new, empty document window as you move into the app. Move to a window-less Finder, and it opens the default window you’ve set in the Finder Preferences; move to Mail if you previously closed the Message window, and the Message window reopens.

7 ways to minimize and maximize apps in Windows 10

Minimizing and maximizing apps helps you declutter the Windows 10 desktop and focus on the apps you’re using. There are several ways to maximize or minimize a window, and while some of them are as easy as clicking or tapping a button, others require using the keyboard. You can decide which one to use depending on the situation. This tutorial illustrates seven ways to minimize and maximize apps in Windows 10, including how to minimize all windows:

First things first: Minimizing and maximizing apps in Windows 10

Before going through all the different ways to minimize and maximize app windows, let’s clarify what each of them means:

• Minimizing an app hides its window from your desktop without closing the app. An icon for that app is displayed on the taskbar. You can easily restore the minimized window to its former state and bring it back to view to continue using it.
• Maximizing an app expands its window to the size of your desktop screen. A maximized app occupies the entire screen space available, except for the taskbar.

The screen capture below shows a maximized Google Chrome window. The app is front and center, taking up the whole screen.

As shown in the screen capture below, when the Google Chrome window is minimized, it is no longer shown on the desktop screen. However, the app is still open and can be restored, as indicated by its icon, displayed on the taskbar in Windows 10.

Minimizing and maximizing apps might seem like opposite actions. However, it’s useful to keep in mind that there is an intermediate state between them – when the app window is shown but does not take up the whole screen, and you can move and resize it at will.

TIP: If you’re using Windows 10 in Tablet mode, all apps launch and remain completely expanded, so the option to maximize windows is no longer available. In this case, apps can be either minimized or maximized, and their title bar is hidden, as seen below. By default, app icons are also hidden from the taskbar.

Continue reading to find out how to maximize programs to expand them to full-screen and how to minimize an app’s screen on Windows 10.

1. Minimize and maximize apps from the caption buttons on the top-right corner of the title bar

The best-known method for minimizing or maximizing an app window is to click or tap on its Minimize or Maximize button from the title bar. All Windows 10 apps and most desktop apps show the Minimize and Maximize buttons on the top-right corner of the window’s title bar, next to the X used to close apps. The Minimize button is the caption button on the left, and its icon displays an underscore symbol.

The Maximize button is in the middle, and its icon looks like a square.

When the app’s window is already displayed in full screen, the Maximize icon changes to two overlapping squares. Hovering over the button might display a tooltip like Restore Down or Unmaximize, depending on the app. Clicking or tapping the Restore Down button returns the app’s window to its previous shape and location, before it was maximized.

2. Minimize and maximize apps from the title bar menu using the mouse

You can also use the title bar menu to minimize and maximize apps in Windows 10. If you prefer the mouse, right-click or press-and-hold on a window’s title bar to open the menu. Then, click or tap on the Minimize or Maximize option, depending on what you want to do.

If a window is maximized, you can also use the Restore button in this menu to return it to its previous size and location on your screen.

All these actions can also be achieved from the title bar menu with keyboard shortcuts, as you’re about to see in the next section. Feel free to combine elements from these two methods to find your favorite way to minimize, maximize, and restore windows from the title bar in Windows 10.

3. Minimize and maximize apps from the title bar menu using keyboard shortcuts

An alternative to open the title bar menu is the Alt + Spacebar keyboard shortcut.

As soon as the title bar menu opens, you can press the N key to minimize or the X key to maximize the window. If the window is expanded, press R on your keyboard to restore it.

TIP: If you’re using Windows 10 in another language, the keys used to maximize, minimize, and restore might be different. However, you can easily find them out by opening the title bar menu with the keyboard shortcut Alt + Spacebar and looking at the underlined letters in each word. As seen below, for English, these are N, X, and R.

4. Minimize and maximize apps using Windows keyboard shortcuts

If the title bar shortcuts are too complicated for you, and you are looking for a more straightforward way to minimize and maximize from the keyboard, you can try a different set of shortcuts that make use of the Windows key. To minimize the app you are using, press Windows + Down arrow on your keyboard. If the app is maximized, this minimize shortcut only restores it to its intermediate state, so you have to use it twice to hide the window from view.

To maximize the current app, use the Windows + Up arrow keyboard shortcut.

TIP: If you just minimized an app with the Windows + Down arrow shortcut, you can immediately use the maximize shortcut above to restore it, as long as you don’t release the Windows key.

To minimize an app, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Windows + 1 to 9. Count the icons on your taskbar from left to right and note the number of the one to minimize. In the image below, 1 corresponds with File Explorer, 2 with Mozilla Firefox, and so on.

Hold down the Windows key and press the number key corresponding to the icon of the open app you want to minimize. The Windows + 1 shortcut minimizes File Explorer, Windows + 2 for Mozilla Firefox, Windows + 3 can be used to minimize Weather, and so on.

The same shortcuts can also be used to restore the app window. When an app has multiple windows open, the Windows + 1 to 9 shortcut can only be used to restore either of them. Hold down the Windows key and press the number once to restore the first preview window displayed, two times to restore the second window shown, etc.

Another useful keyboard shortcut is Windows + D. You can use it to immediately minimize all windows and access your desktop. Press it again to restore the windows you just minimized and continue your task.

Another keyboard shortcut to minimize all the app windows from your desktop at once is Windows + M.

To reverse this shortcut’s effect and restore all the app windows to their original state on your desktop, use the keyboard shortcut Windows + Shift + M.

If you need help focusing on something, you can use the keyboard shortcut Windows + Home to minimize all the other windows, except for the active one.

5. Minimize and maximize app windows from the taskbar

The Windows taskbar offers several ways to minimize and maximize app windows. The most obvious one applies to minimizing and requires just one click or tap. When you open an app, Windows 10 automatically displays an icon for it on the taskbar. Click or tap on it, and the app window minimizes. Clicking or tapping on the same icon again restores the app to its previous state, which may or may not be maximized.

If you opened multiple windows of the same app, clicking or tapping on its icon shows a preview of both windows. Click or tap on either preview to restore or bring that window into focus.

You can bring up a preview of an app that only has one window open by hovering your cursor over its icon. Right-click on an app’s preview to open a menu similar to the title one discussed earlier. Press Minimize, Maximize, or Restore in the menu or N, X, or R respectively on your keyboard depending on what you want to do.

You can also bring up the same menu by pressing Shift + Right-click (or Shift + press-and-hold for touchscreens) on the taskbar icon of the app you want to minimize, maximize, or restore. Then, you can click or tap Minimize, Maximize, or Restore or use the corresponding N, X, and R keys.

If more windows of the same app are open, the options available in this menu apply to all of them. Since you can’t maximize more than one window, you can only click or tap to “Restore all windows” or “Minimize all windows.“ You can also use the corresponding keys R or M for the same results.

6. Maximize an app’s window using its title bar

An app’s title bar can also be used to both maximize an app and restore it to its former size and location. The easiest way to do that is to double-click or double-tap on the window’s title bar. Click or tap it twice in fast succession once more to restore it.

You can also click or tap on the app’s title bar to grab it, and then drag it to the top of your screen. A transparent overlay appears around the screen, showing a preview of the window’s placement. Release the mouse or lift your finger when you see the overlay, and the window is maximized.

You can also drag the title bar of a maximized window downwards in order to restore it.

7. Minimize all windows with one click or tap

The Show desktop button minimizes all the apps on your screen with one click or tap. You can find it in the lower-right corner of your screen. Click or tap on it to minimize all the open app windows and show your desktop.

Clicking or tapping on the Show desktop button again restores the same app windows to their initial size and place on your desktop.

BONUS: Restore minimized apps with Task switcher and Task View in Windows 10

Minimized apps are still open, so you can also restore them from the Task View or Task switcher, which both offer an overview of your open apps. To open the Task switcher, use the keyboard combination Ctrl + Alt + Tab.

The Task switcher displays previews of all the open windows of your active apps. Click or tap on the one you want to restore or use the arrow keys to highlight it, and then press Enter.

Alternatively, you can press-and-hold Alt + Tab to access the Task switcher. Continue holding the Alt key and keep pressing Tab to move the focus between the open app windows until you find the one you want to restore. Then, release the buttons, and the window is restored to its former place.

To access Task View, you can use the keyboard shortcut Windows + Tab. In Tablet mode, swipe inwards from the left side of your screen to open it. Just like Task switcher, Task View shows all the app windows you have open on your Windows 10 computer or device. Click or tap on the one you want to restore or use the arrow keys, and then press Enter.

Did you learn any new ways to minimize, maximize, or restore apps?

While some of the methods illustrated in this tutorial are intuitive, some are a bit harder to figure out. Maximizing apps is always a good idea if you are trying to focus on something – we always write our articles with the app maximized. If you need to declutter your screen, minimizing can help. However, if you’re not going to use an app for a long time, it’s better to close it. Please, let us know if you picked up any new info from our tutorial. Did you learn any new ways to minimize, maximize, or restore app windows? Are there any we overlooked? Let us know in the comments.