Can I reduce ALL open Windows easily ?

[timmy_toad]

Hi all, I have often wanted to Click on a Desktop Icon, when I have the screen full of open windows !!!!

I wonder does anyone know of a Shortcut, or perhaps an App that can quickly reduce all open windows down to the Task Bar, so that I can see ALL of the Icons on my Desktop.

It would be good, if I can boldly suggest it, to perhaps have a Desk Top Icon In the LaunchPad, that can be clickable on the screen, when I do a 4 finger swipe up to SHOW all the windows that are Open !

Perhaps there is an App already out there that can do this ???

I am using YOSEMITE

 

[MYmacROX]

It's been a while, but on my MBP I used to be able to pinch 3 fingers or 4 and it would do what you're describing. I also assigned an unused Fkey on my iMac keyboard to minimize all open windows. It is (or was) a built-in function. System Preferences>Touch Pad and see if maybe there is something in there to describe how to do that. (Or Google it)

 

[BudVitoff]

According to my "Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet", Command-Option-M will minimize all windows; however, according to my iMac running under Mavericks, it will minimize all windows except one! After that, Command-M or the yellow button will minimize the last one, of course.

As long as we're on the subject, you may not know that Dock Preferences has an option to minimize behind the application icon, a la Windows 7.

 

[chas_m]

1. You should not have any icons on your desktop except perhaps the hard drive and any mounted volumes.

2. Perhaps another approach you could use is to ask yourself WHY you have so many open windows on your desktop that you cannot access the items you desire? That might lead you to consider an alternative way of working.

 

[toMACsh]

Well, this is easy for me, because I use Snow Leopard.

 

[toMACsh]

1. You should not have any icons on your desktop except perhaps the hard drive and any mounted volumes.

I have alias icons on my Desktop so that the Dock doesn't get too crowded. I think that's a bit over stated.

 

[timmy_toad]

Hi Chaps thanks for the varied answers to my problem, nothing much seems to work regarding the suggestions above.

Chas_m I take your point, I do know that Large files on my Desk Top is a NO NO !!! but I thought that the DeskTop was the compulsory and the easiest place to put short cuts !!!!

So I suppose the ULTIMATE solution would be to have a button/icon in the menu bar (at the top of the screen) that would display a list of Short Cuts, much like the Bookmarks button in Safari does, but of course the button/icon in the menu bar would include Apps as well, much like the LaunchPad, but easier to access, as it could be simply text instead of large icons which go across three or four screens !

 

[BudVitoff]

timmy_toad: See my 12:37 AM post above. In addition, the cheat sheet mentions Command-H (Hide the windows of the currently running application) and Command-Option-H (Hide the windows of all other running applications). I haven't played with those.

chas_m: I'm with you 100%. I think it would be easier for some people to put this into perspective by comparing the screen desktop to a desktop at work. It's a handy place to put things when you're working on a project, but when you're finished with that project or simply switching to a different one, you put things back in their files, then clean up the desktop to prepare it for the next job.

To all, in case you missed it: Is your dock getting crowded because you have a lot of minimized open files taking up space? Take another look at Dock Preferences: There's a checkbox which causes minimizing an open file to hide behind its app icon. Right-click the icon to see what's there, and select the one you want to restore. It's how Win7 does it and it's very convenient.

 

[timmy_toad]

Thanks BudVitoff
I have now revisited your post above, and HAPPILY pressing Command + H several times closes all open Windows, which is exactly what I was wanting to do LOL, thanks a million,

Command + M wasn't quite right for me LOL.

But of course I should also reduce the clutter on my desk top

 

[BudVitoff]

In the continuing pursuit of avoiding work, it appears that one Command-Option-H followed by one Command-H will work instead of several Command-H's. At least that's what it says. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make it work that way. I think it's worth playing around with it to find the magic sequence. At one point, I found it necessary to click the desktop (i.e., activate Finder) to make part of it work.

You tried Command-M. Did you try Command-Option-M?

Are we having fun yet?

 

[toMACsh]

To all, in case you missed it: Is your dock getting crowded because you have a lot of minimized open files taking up space?

I'll respond since I mentioned Dock crowding.

No, not in my case. MY issue with "crowding" is that the icons get smaller. I have 24 items permanently docked, and another 6 aliases on the Desktop. Then the Desktop has the icons for my drives, and occasionally files that I don't intend to keep for very long.

 

[junkm]

Here's the "Minimize All Windows" fix for Macs

You can absolutely fix this oversight in OSX. It requires a trivial Applescript combined with a hotkey combination to call it. Take a look at this wordpress posting to get a step-by-step guide to doing this.