Keyboard shortcut to unhide or unminimize a window in OS X

Question

I know how to Hide (Cmd+H) or Minimize (Cmd+M) a focused window in OS X, but I can't find a keyboard shortcut or even a menu item to restore, unhide, unminimize, or otherwise show a window that I've hidden or minimized.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Answer 1

This way requires a bit of practice:

• press ⌘ ⇥ (Command-Tab) to show your running apps. Keep holding ⌘.

• press ⇥ until you've selected the minimized app

• press the ⌥ (Option) key, and let go of the ⌘ key. You must release the Command key after pressing the Option key!

Note that this only works for an app with all of its windows minimized. If there is already a visible window of the app you won't be able to get to the minimized one with this trick.

Answer 2

To restore one of many minimized windows using only the keyboard:

1. Start with a minimized window
2. Cmd + tab to the application icon (Continue to hold Cmd).
3. Tip: After pressing Cmd + tab once, you can also use arrow left (and right) when holding the Cmd key, to quickly go to the application. This is a handy combination with the next step.
4. While holding Cmd, push the up (or down) arrow key on the keyboard. This will bring up a list of all the application's windows (You can release key command key once the window list view comes up if you like)
5. Push the down arrow key to select the minimized windows.
6. Use the left and right arrow keys to select the minimized window you want
7. Push enter to restore the window and bring it into focus (make it the selected window)

(Tested on OSX Mountain Lion. Step 2b tested on MacOS Sierra)

Answer 3

Another option is to press ⌃F3 (fn^F3 on a MacBook) to bring focus to the dock. From there you can navigate left/right/up/down to select the window you want to unminimize.

Answer 4

I always hide applications instead of minimizing windows:

• Just focusing the application again unhides it
• There is no animation
• When an application has multiple windows, I often want to show or hide them as a group
• I keep the Dock hidden, and it would be easy to forget minimized windows in the Dock

Anyway, here are a few (probably not that useful) scripts for unminimizing windows. You can assign shortcuts to them with an application like FastScripts or Alfred.

This unminimizes all windows of the current application:

tell application (path to frontmost application as text)
    try
        set miniaturized of windows to false -- most applications
    end try
    try
        set collapsed of windows to false -- at least Finder
    end try
end tell

If minimizing to application icons is not enabled, you could also click the last Dock icon:

try
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Dock"
        click (last UI element of list 1 where role description is "minimized window dock item")
    end tell
end try

This clicks the dock icons of all minimized windows:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Dock"
    click (UI elements of list 1 where role description is "minimized window dock item")
end tell

Answer 5

Keyboard shortcuts:

1. Hold down ⌘ + Tab
2. While holding down ⌘, hit Tab to move to the app you are interested in
3. While holding down ⌘, hit the ▲ arrow to make the window thumbnails appear at the bottom
4. While holding down ⌘, hit the ▼ arrow to move the the bottom row where all the other windows are open
5. Let go of ⌘ and move left or right to select the window
6. Hit Enter

Trackpad shortcuts:

1. Configure it
   1. System Preferences » Trackpad » App Expose » Swipe down with three fingers
2. Use it
   1. Swipe down with three fingers to make the window thumbnails appear at the bottom
   2. Click the window you are interested in

Answer 6

To show a window that you've hidden with ⌘H, you can unhide it and bring it back to the foreground by switching to it with ⌘⇥ along with perhaps ⌘`.

A clunky way to bring up a window minimized using ⌘M is to bring up the Application Exposé using F10, then navigate down to the realm of minimized windows to select the one you want to restore.

Answer 7

You can use Cmd-L to unminimize a window.

But I think it only works if you don't have another window of the same application open.

Answer 8

Some applications bind commands to their windows (Terminal comes to mind, but iTunes also with Cmd-Opt-1/2), you can restore those that way.

You want Witch for the kind of functionality you want. And having the zoom button accessible via keyboard is also pure bliss.

You can't hide windows, only applications. Unhide via Cmd-Tab (the hidden applications are to the right, so use Cmd-Shift-Tab to start there).

You can always open the Help menu's text field and type the window name (if you know it) to access its Window menu sub-item.

Answer 9

Its simpler:

1. You know ⌘ + Tab shows app icons, and helps to switch between. And ⌘ + Shift + Tab does the same in reverse order.
2. Press ⌘ + H to Hide while the ⌘ + Tab has the highlight on the desired app icon.
3. Pressing ⌘ + H also unhides (or brings it back).

So, just put ⌘ + Tab and ⌘ + H to your muscle memory.

But the problem is, ⌘ + H doesnt unhide if the window was minimized using pointing device. In this case, use ⌘(hold) + Option(Hold) + release ⌘ and Option at the same time. I try not to use trackpad for minimising, because ⌘ + H seems simple and easy.

Answer 10

You can also use Spotlight Search cmd+space, start typing the app name and press enter. It will switch to the open app and unhide/un-minimize the window. However as @GenePavlosky pointed out, this only brings one minimized window to the forefront.