May 25, 2013 - I want to be able to minimize all at the same time. I prefer to set a hot. Quickly Minimize Windows in Mac OS X with a Keyboard Shortcut or Double-Click May 21, 2012 - 19 Comments Virtually everyone knows you can click the yellow pill button in the upper left corner of a window to minimize a window in Mac OS X, but there are actually a few other ways minimize windows faster than that.
Q. How do I quickly minimize all runnings apps/windows and show the Mac OSX desktop?!
A. The best way I know of is to press the F11 key (or Fn+F11 on some MacBook keyboards…) this should  push all your apps out of the way and show the desktop. To get your apps back in place, just press F11 again!
PS another method is to command+option+click on the desktop, (or instead of Desktop, a Finder window, or the Finder icon in the dock). I personally don’t like this method as well as F11…
I hope this helps!
More tips:
OS 10.4 – Minimize All Windows – Mac-Forums.comhttp://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/79838-minimize-all-windows.htmlHello, What is the best way to minimize all windows, not close them to quickly get to the desktop? Thanks for your time!
[…]
To minimise all windows of the app in focus, press Command + Option + M
Otherwise, a better option is to press Command+H which will hide the application. That way, you don’t have to bring up each window from the dock
Of course, for quick access to the desktop, nothing beats the F11 key. Actually, there is. You can set one of your corners to “Show Desktop” in the dashboard and Expose preference and then with the flick of a mouse, you can access your desktop.
Do you have an alternative tip or suggestion? Let me know by commenting!
Active8 years, 9 months ago
In Mac OS X Leopard, is it possible to minimize a window just using combination mouse/keyboard? Or just mouse?
CORRECTION: I mean, how to minimize it, avoiding Command-M or clicking on the yellow button. Just one key from the keyboard and one mouse click, no matter where the mouse pointer is.
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2 Answers
What I normally use is double-clicking the titlebar of the window. I think now this option may be off by default. Go to System Preferences > Appearance and check the box for 'Double-click a window's title bar to minimize'. This offers a much larger target area than the minimize button.
A couple other tips that involve adding in the modifier keys along with the double-click action. (Some of these may not work in all apps, or might not be available in older versions of OS X--sorry, having gone through 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.4 and 10.5, it can begin to get a bit difficult to remember when which feature was introduced).
Anyway, hold down the Option (alt) key and double-click on the window title bar to Minimize All windows (from the current application) to the Dock. (Option in this context means 'apply to all'). Similarly, if there are multiple windows from a particular application that are minimized in the Dock, Option-click on one of the window's icon to have them all brought back out.
As with virtually any command or feature that involves animation, the Shift key can be used to impress your friends. ;-) It causes any animation to go in slow motion rather than normal speed. So, Shift-Option-double-click on titlebar minimizes all windows from an app in slow motion, etc.
Regarding using a single key (such as just pressing M without any modifier keys), no you can't do that as far as I know. Any kind of action like that will require at least one modifier key — (Option (alt), Command (⌘), or Control— in combination with the 'regular' keys. The modifier key is needed so that the application can know that it should interpret the letter M as a command, and not as plain text.
Updated:
Here's Apple's list of keyboard shortcuts:
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