Close all macOS windows. Managing window hiding

Hello dear friends! I must admit I have been planning to write this article for a long time and finally got it. This is more likely not even an article, but let’s say “a guide to hotkeys for a macdrive”, I myself am so used to using hotkeys that sometimes I look askance at people who, for example, close a program or tabs in a browser with a mouse, and not with the usual Command + W 🙂

But seriously, knowing even basic shortcuts allows you to save a lot of time and significantly increase the efficiency of your work. Mouse in the direction and let's go.

Short designations:

fn-Function key

Since the article turned out to be quite voluminous, for convenience, I decided to make a table of contents:

How to cut, paste, copy on Mac?

The keyboard shortcuts below work in almost all Mac programs and allow you to perform move operations on all kinds of files (text, music, folders).

Hot keys for screenshots

Keyboard shortcuts for changing boot options

In this section, you will learn how to boot your Mac using the keyboard. Keep in mind that the keys must be held down immediately after starting the Mac.

Completion of the session. Sleeping mode

Hot keys when working in programs

Suitable for most Mac programs.

Efficient work with text using hotkeys

Hotkeys in Finder

As you can see, the list turned out to be very impressive and not suitable for everyone, for those who, for example, work a lot with text, it will be useful, and for ordinary users it will be enough to know 15-20 hots from various areas. And for "photoshops" you can write a separate book in general 🙂

Cheasheet Utility (Bonus #1)

But there is one very smart utility that will always tell you which keyboard shortcuts are relevant for the program in which you are on this moment work, her name is . Using the program is extremely simple, install it and then hold Command until such a window appears (screen, by the way, from Photoshop):

One not unimportant point, since you need access to all Mac programs, then it must be given permission during installation:

Now everything is ready to receive hints while working in any program, and in the future the necessary key combinations will be remembered by themselves and you will become a keyboard virtuoso.

Assign hotkeys ourselves (bonus #2)

It happens that the user often performs the same action and thinks how nice it would be to assign hot keys for him, but what is the actual problem? Let's look at an example.

Assign a shortcut to an action export in a programme View:

Open system settings > keyboard > keyboard shortcuts and look at the screen what to do next

In the window that appears, select the program, enter the EXACT name of the action to which we assign the shortcut and set the key combination:

Everything is ready, now images can be exported using ⌘+⇧+/

And at the end of the article, I want to say again that Mac OS hotkeys can significantly increase your productivity by focusing on the keyboard.

P.S. I am sure that I did not mention a couple of useful shortcuts, so I will be glad if you add to my list in the comments.

Mac OS has a lot of handy hotkeys. And not all of them are used frequently.

Window Management

Hide current window except last cmd+h

Hide all windows except active cmd+option+H

Hide ALL windows on desktop cmd+option+h+m

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Command + space Keyboard shortcut to switch keyboard layout on Mac OS X. I don't understand why, but for many people switching to a Mac, this causes problems. You can always look at Settings->Language and Text", and change the layout switching keys to " Settings->Keyboard->Keyboard and text input".

Function keys when booting OS X

To launch one of the special OS X boot modes, you must press and hold a combination of these keys. It is recommended to press immediately after sound signal start download.

My most used Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.

Save a copy of the screen.

There are many programs that allow you to make a copy of the screen (print-screen), but at the moment I don’t understand why they are needed.

By default, the file is saved in png format, but this can be fixed with a terminal command:

Defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image format name
killall SystemUIServer

Possible format options

• PNG- default
• JPEG– Joint Photographic Expert Group file format
• gif– Graphics Interchange Format
• BMP– Windows bitmap
• TIFF– Tagged Image File Format
• PDF– Portable Document Format

By default, images are saved to the desktop. You can change the default save folder

Defaults write com.apple.screencapture location full path to folder

Revert to desktop by default

Defaults write com.apple.screencapture location

By default, when saving a window, the image is saved along with the shadow. Disable this feature

Defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool TRUE

Revert saving "shadows":

Defaults delete com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow

For all changes to take effect, you must log out and log in again, or run

Killall SystemUIServer

Other Finder hotkeys

The OS X version of El Capitan has a great split-screen feature - it first appeared in Windows 7.

If you have two windows open and want to move them side by side so that each of them takes up its own half of the screen, you need to press and hold the green stretch button in the upper left corner of the window until it shrinks and half of the screen is colored in light blue. Hold the button and drag the window to the desired location. Ready! Now you can work on a document on one side of the screen and have useful notes on the other side. Or you can watch videos on while scrolling through social networks.

Pin two windows on different halves of the screen so you can easily keep an eye on two things at the same time.

To exit the split screen mode, press the green stretch button again - one of the windows will return to normal size, and the second will open in full screen.

Switching between windows

When you have many windows open at once, it can be very inconvenient to switch between them by dragging and dropping.

To quickly switch from the current to the last opened application, use the combination ⌘+Tab. If you want to switch between multiple programs, hold down the ⌘ key and press Tab multiple times to view your open windows.

Image: Giphy

If you swipe up on the touchpad on your MacBook, smaller versions of all the open windows from which you can choose.

If for some reason you urgently need to minimize the window, use the keyboard shortcut ⌘+H(does not work if the window is maximized to full screen).

Tab management

To open a new tab, click ⌘+T, and to close the current one - ⌘+W. If you accidentally close a tab in Chrome, click ⌘+Shift+T and it will reopen.

To switch between tabs one by one, use the keyboard shortcut ⌘+Shift+( And ⌘+Shift+).

Image: Giphy

Convenient use of the Finder file manager

When your Mac is full of folders, files, and apps, figure out file manager Finder is not easy. In this case, the Spotlight search tool will help you. To launch it, click ⌘+Space. Spotlight allows you to search for files on your computer and information on the Internet.

If you want to quickly jump to a specific folder, click ⌘+Shift+first letter of her name. Key combination ⌘+Shift+H will take you to the default user folder, and the combination ⌘+Shift+A opens access to applications. Click ⌘+Shift+D to switch to desktop, and ⌘+Shift+U to go to Utilities.

Quick Screenshot

If you want to take a screenshot, you can do it in two ways. Key combination ⌘+Shift+3 Allows you to take a screenshot of the entire screen and save it to your desktop. To select a specific area of ​​the screen to take a screenshot, click ⌘+Shift+4. After pressing this keyboard shortcut, select the desired fragment.

The selection method can be changed immediately after pressing the combination ⌘+Shift+4. Press the Option button and click the mouse - the selection area is scaled horizontally. While selecting, hold Shift and drag the edges of the area to the right or left - this way you can change its width, but the height will remain the same. If you drag the edges of the area up and down while holding Shift, the width of the selected area will be fixed, but you can change its height. Hold the Spacebar while making a selection to move the area to the desired part of the screen.

You can take a screenshot of a specific window - to do this, click ⌘+Shift+4 And Space. Your cursor will turn into a small camera icon. Click on the desired window to take a screenshot of it, or click Option and click to get a screenshot of the window without the shadow.

If you click on the red X in the left corner of an OS X app window, the window will disappear, but that doesn't mean the app will stop. It might be strange Windows users. Of course, it's not necessary to close applications, but surely someone will want to give their Mac a rest or clean the Dock. There are several ways to close an application in OS X.

1. From the menu bar

One of the most simple ways to end an application is to click on its name in the menu bar, and then click Complete.

2. From Dock

The second easy way is to find the application icon in Dock, right click on it and click Complete. This is how I do it most of the time.

3. Key combination


Probably the easiest way to end an application is to press the key combination Command ⌘ + Q on keyboard. To my great regret, quite often I manage to press it by accident.

4. From the icon in the menu bar

You can find icons of some applications on the right side of the menu bar. Not all, but some of them can also be completed by clicking on the icon.

5. From System Monitor app


In folder Utilities you can find System monitoring. This application knows a lot about what is currently happening with your Mac and what application is actively running. From the list of active applications, you can complete any. Try not to close anything really important.

6. From the terminal

Everything you want to do with your Mac can be done with and more. You need a team osascript -e 'quit app "Application Name"'. After entering it, press Enter.

Sourced from iDownloadBlog

Do you have too many open windows on your desktop? Do you want to quickly jump between them or, for example, expand one and collapse the other? Or maybe you just want to focus and expand the window to full screen? For each of these actions there are hot keys, which, for some reason, are not commonly used actively. Meanwhile, they are very helpful in the work. Here are some keyboard shortcuts you can use to manage windows and save time.

1. Switching between windows of the active application - Command + '

Do you switch between applications using the Command + Tab combination? The proposed combination is the same, only inside the active application. This is much faster than if you clicked right click click on the application shortcut in search of the desired window.

So that no one has any questions - the second key from this combination is the same tilde, usually located above the "1" key of the standard keyboard.

2. Minimize the current window - Command + M

Want to get rid of the current window without closing it? Just press Command+M and the window will collapse to the Dock, where you will find it when you decide to return to it.

3.Maximize the current window

Tired of clicking the green button in the corner of the window to expand it to full screen? This can be done using a keyboard shortcut, although you will have to configure it yourself - by default it is not.

• Open "System Preferences"
• Select the "Keyboard" menu
• In this menu, go to the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab
• In the left column, select "Keyboard shortcuts for the program" and click "+"
• In the "Menu Name" field, enter "Zoom", and in the "Keyboard Shortcut" field, enter a keyboard shortcut that is convenient for you, for example, Command + =

4. Hide other applications - Command + Option + H

If, in addition to the current application, you have a bunch of windows open and you want to quickly eliminate this mess, then The best decision– press Command+Option+H. As a result, you will remain in the current program window, and all other applications will be minimized and stop interfering with your life and work.

5.Log in full screen mode– Command+Power

If you want to focus on the current task, say while working in text editor then expand the window to full screen. To do this, press Command + Power and there will be nothing on the screen except the current application. To reverse the action, press the same key combination again. If this option does not work for you, then from the previous paragraph you already know how to make it work.

6.Close the current window - Command+W

This keyboard shortcut has existed in OS X since the early days of the system, but I still meet people who have never heard of it. One way or another, pressing these hot keys closes the current program window (for example, a tab in the browser), and if there is only one window in the application, then Command + W closes the application.

7. Close all application windows - Command + Option + W

The keyboard shortcut is similar to the previous one. Only it closes all windows of the current application. Convenient when the browser is littered with tabs, for example.