How To Minimize All Open Windows On Mac

macOS: Tips on Minimizing Windows into the Dock

macOS has long included powerful and handy window management features, but that doesn't mean that the operating organization's default settings are ideal for every user. Thankfully, the fashion that macOS handles applications and windows tin exist customized, and here are a few tricks that may make working with windows on your Mac much more enjoyable.
Starting time, the options related to the tricks nosotros'll be discussing today are located inSystem Preferences, which is the central hub for most of the user-configurable options and settings on your Mac. To launch Arrangement Preferences, you can select it from the Apple Menu at the superlative-left corner of your screen, or by selecting its icon from your Dock (it looks like several gray gears).

Once the main System Preferences window opens, detect and selectDock
Dock Preferences
This section of System Preferences contains several options for how your Mac'due south Dock looks and functions. The two settings we're interested in today are highlighted in the red box, below:

Modify What Happens When You Double-Click the Title Bar

The start option lets yous decide what will happen to a window when you double-click its championship bar. Starting time, still, what does Apple mean past "championship bar," anyway? That's referring to the empty grayness area at the tiptop of the windows in nigh programs, where apps volition house their various buttons and such. So, double-clicking in an empty area of this space will produce one of the following two results: zoom or minimize .
Title Bar
The "Zoom" option is a flake disruptive, because it doesn't work the same manner for all applications. In general, however, "zoom" will brand the window bigger. In most modern apps, the window will expand equally large as information technology needs to (upwardly to the maximum area of your screen) to fit the window's contents. This means that if you lot're viewing a spider web page in Safari, for case, and you double-click the championship bar, the window will expand to the peak and bottom of your screen, merely only as far left and right every bit needed to fit the website's contents. In other words, on near Macs with high-resolution displays, you'll have some empty space to the right and left of your Safari window in which you tin can see your desktop or any other open applications in the background.
For some applications, all the same, especially older ones, "Zooming" a window will brand it accept up the entire available screen, regardless of how much space its content requires. Note, however, that this isnot the aforementioned as macOS'southward full screen fashion, equally you'll still see your Dock and carte bar (if they're not configured to hide, that is). Therefore, the way that Zoom works with older applications is most similar to the way that the "Maximize" button works in Windows.
The second option for double-clicking the title bar is "Minimize." This option, as its name suggests, volition simply minimize the window to the right side of your Dock.
Dock with Minimized Window
It's the same functionality as clicking the xanthous "stoplight" icon in the acme-left of an application window…

…but it may be a quicker way for users to minimize windows equally you tin click in whatever empty space of the championship bar instead of having to click a relatively small icon located in just one spot.

Keep Your Dock Clear of Ataxia By Minimizing Windows Into Their Application's Dock Icon

The second selection nosotros're discussing today is what macOS should really practise with your minimized application windows. By default, when you minimize a window, it appears on the right side of your Dock. This is fine if y'all're only working with a few windows, simply if you lot have multiple apps or windows minimized, it tin quickly go a cluttered mess. This is especially truthful for applications that let you have more than one window open, such as Postal service:
Dock with Many Windows
If you cheque theMinimize windows into application icon box in Arrangement Preferences, however, your minimized windows will no longer reside on the right side of your Dock, but will instead "stack" or "hibernate' behind their corresponding awarding icon. If you have just a unmarried window open for a particular awarding, only click on the awarding icon in the Dock to maximize it. If you have multiple windows open in a given application, right-click, Command-Click, or click and hold on the awarding icon to encounter the minimized windows listed, and so left-click once on the 1 yous want to maximize.
Dock Icon with Menu
Alternatively, with your desired awarding active, you can see a list of all minimized windows from theWindow menu in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

The downside to this approach is that you lot don't get a visual preview of the window as yous would when information technology's minimized in the Dock, and so yous'll demand to rely on window names to detect the one you're looking for. Simply in the effect that you accept too many minimized windows, their preview icons volition be and so small in the Dock that you probably won't be able to make out annihilation useful anyhow.
Equally is the example with most options in System Preferences, if yous don't like the changes you've fabricated, you can head back toOrganization Preferences > Dock and reset any of the options. For the window management tips discussed here, there'due south no demand to reboot or log-out when making changes; the changes will take effect as soon as you make them.