macOS Window Management Shortcuts
macOS's window-management model is built around a meaningful distinction between an application and its windows, and the shortcuts here reflect that — closing a window doesn't necessarily quit the app behind it, which shapes how several of these bindings are designed to work. Beyond quitting, closing, and switching, macOS also provides shortcuts for hiding an app's windows without minimizing them individually, decluttering down to a single focused app, and snapping windows into half-screen tiles.
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quit application | — | Cmd+Q | Fully quits the active application, distinct from closing its window — on Mac, closing all of an app's windows (Cmd+W) doesn't necessarily quit the app itself, which can run with no windows open until explicitly quit. |
| Close active window | — | Cmd+W | Closes only the currently focused window, leaving the application itself running in the background even with no windows open, a Mac-specific distinction from how Windows typically handles closing a last window. |
| Minimize active window | — | Cmd+M | Minimizes the active window to the Dock, retrievable by clicking its Dock icon again. |
| Switch between open applications | — | Cmd+Tab | Brings up a horizontal strip of icons for every running application; keep Cmd held down and tap Tab to walk across them, then let go of Cmd to jump straight into whichever app the highlight has landed on — this switches whole applications, not individual windows within one app. |
| Switch between windows of the same app | — | Cmd+ ` (backtick) | Cycles between multiple open windows belonging to the currently active application specifically, a companion shortcut to Cmd+Tab's app-level switching for when one app has several windows open simultaneously. |
| Toggle fullscreen mode | — | Cmd+Ctrl+F | Expands the active window into macOS's fullscreen mode, which also creates a dedicated Space for that fullscreen app, accessible like any other Space via swipe or Mission Control. |
| Hide active application | — | Cmd+H | Hides every window belonging to the active application without minimizing them individually or quitting the app, removing them from view entirely until the app is brought back to the foreground, distinct from minimizing which keeps a visible Dock trace of each hidden window. |
| Hide all other applications | — | Cmd+Option+H | Hides every open application except the currently active one, useful for quickly decluttering the screen down to just the one app you're focused on without individually hiding or minimizing each other open app one at a time. |
| Tile window to screen half | — | Drag window to screen edge, or hold green button | Resizes the focused window down to precisely half the display, triggered either by dragging it against a screen edge until a highlight outline appears, or by hovering and holding the green fullscreen button to reveal a tiling menu — a window-management feature Apple added to macOS relatively recently compared to how long Windows has had it. |
Cmd+Q quits an application entirely, ending its running process, while Cmd+W only closes the currently focused window, leaving the app running invisibly in the background (often still showing in the Dock with a small dot indicator beneath its icon) until explicitly quit. This distinction matters for memory and battery usage on a Mac in a way that's less prominent on Windows, where closing the last window of many apps does end the process — Mac users often accumulate several 'open but windowless' apps over a session without realizing it.
Cmd+Tab switches between applications at the app level, showing one icon per running app regardless of how many windows each has open; Cmd+` (backtick) is the companion shortcut for cycling between multiple windows of whichever single application is currently active, a distinction Windows' Alt+Tab doesn't make in quite the same two-tier way.
Fullscreen mode (Cmd+Ctrl+F) does more than simply maximize a window — entering it creates a dedicated Space specifically for that fullscreen app, which becomes accessible like any other virtual desktop through swiping or Mission Control, meaning a fullscreen app effectively gets its own dedicated 'room' in macOS's broader Spaces system rather than being a simple display-filling resize.
Cmd+M for minimizing sends the active window down into the Dock with Apple's signature genie or scale animation, retrievable with a single click on its Dock icon — functionally similar to Windows' minimize but visually and conceptually tied more tightly to the Dock as the universal landing spot for minimized and inactive content on Mac.
Hide (Cmd+H) removes every window belonging to the active application from view entirely, distinct from minimizing each window individually — a hidden app's windows disappear as a group and reappear as a group the moment you switch back to that app via Cmd+Tab or its Dock icon, rather than needing to click each minimized window's Dock representation separately the way repeated individual minimizing would require.
Hide Others (Cmd+Option+H) takes this a step further, hiding every application except the one currently active, instantly decluttering the screen down to just your current focus — genuinely useful when screen-sharing or presenting and you want to guarantee nothing unrelated is visible, or simply when deep in focused work and wanting to remove every visual distraction from other open apps without quitting or minimizing each one individually.
Window tiling, a comparatively recent addition to macOS window management compared to Windows' long-standing Snap feature, lets you drag a window against a screen edge until a highlighted preview outline appears, then release to snap it into exactly half the screen — or hover over and hold a window's green fullscreen button to reveal a small menu of tiling and sizing options without needing to drag manually at all. This narrows one of the more genuine functional gaps that historically existed between Windows' native window-snapping and macOS's more manual, drag-based window resizing conventions.