You're staring at a cluttered desktop. It's a mess. Between the twenty Chrome tabs, three Slack channels, and a random Spotify playlist, your Mac is basically screaming for help. Learning how to minimize a window on mac sounds like the most basic thing in the world, right? Well, it is and it isn't. Most people just click the yellow button and call it a day, but there are actually a dozen ways to clear your screen that are way faster and, frankly, way less annoying than hunting for a tiny colored circle with your mouse.
Honestly, the yellow button is kinda slow. It’s the "scenic route" of window management. If you’re trying to actually be productive, you need to know the keyboard shortcuts and the gestures that Apple hides in the System Settings.
The Classic Yellow Button (And Its Secret Powers)
Everyone knows the stoplight. Red closes, green expands, and that middle yellow one? That's your primary way to minimize a window on Mac. You click it, the window shrinks with a "Genie" or "Scale" effect, and it hides inside the Dock. It sits there, usually on the right side near the Trash, waiting for you to click it again.
But here’s a weird quirk: if you hold the Option key while clicking that yellow button, something different happens. On older versions of macOS, this would minimize all windows of the application you’re currently using. It’s a lifesaver when you have six Finder windows open and just want them all gone.
Some people hate the "Genie" effect. It feels slow. It’s that swoosh animation where the window sucks down into the Dock like it’s being inhaled by a vacuum. If you want it to feel snappier, go to System Settings > Desktop & Dock and change "Minimize windows using" from Genie to Scale. It’s just a straight-up shrink. Much faster.
The Shortcuts That Actually Save Time
Stop moving your mouse. Seriously. If you’re still moving your hand to the trackpad every time you want to hide a document, you’re losing seconds that add up to hours over a month. The absolute king of shortcuts is Command + M.
Press it. Boom. The active window is gone.
But there’s a trap. Command + M only minimizes the active window. What if you want to hide the entire app? That’s where Command + H comes in.
There is a massive difference between "Minimize" and "Hide" that most users don't get. When you minimize (Command + M), the window goes to the Dock as a little icon. When you hide (Command + H), the app stays active, but all its windows just... vanish. They aren't in the Dock. They’re just in the "shadow realm" until you click the app icon or use Command + Tab to bring them back. Honestly, Hiding is usually better. It keeps your Dock from looking like a crowded parking lot.
Double-Clicking the Title Bar
This is an old-school PowerPC-era trick that still works in 2026. You can set your Mac so that double-clicking the top bar of any window (the empty space next to the file name) minimizes it.
You have to turn this on manually though. Head over to System Settings, find Desktop & Dock, and look for the dropdown menu that says "Double-click a window's title bar to..." and pick Minimize.
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Now, instead of aiming for that tiny yellow dot, you just "tap-tap" anywhere on the top of the window. It’s much more forgiving if you’re using a magic mouse or a jumpy trackpad. Some people prefer setting this to "Zoom," which makes the window fill the screen, but if you're here to clear clutter, Minimize is the way to go.
Using Mission Control and Hot Corners
If you’ve never used Hot Corners, you’re missing out on the coolest (and sometimes most frustrating) feature macOS has. Basically, you can tell your Mac that when your mouse hits the bottom-right corner of the screen, it should do something specific.
- Go to System Settings.
- Search for Hot Corners.
- Assign one corner to Desktop.
Now, you don't even have to minimize. You just flick your wrist, the mouse hits the corner, and every single window flies off-screen to reveal your desktop. It’s the ultimate "boss is coming" move. Flick it again, and everything comes back exactly where it was. It’s not technically minimizing, but it achieves the same goal without the clutter of twenty icons in your Dock.
Why Your Windows Won't Minimize
Sometimes, you’ll click that yellow button and... nothing. It’s greyed out. This usually happens because the app is in "Full Screen" mode (the green button).
When an app is Full Screen, it’s basically in its own little world. It doesn't live on the standard desktop anymore, so it can't be "minimized" to the Dock in the traditional sense. You have to exit Full Screen first (Command + Control + F) or just swipe between desktops using three fingers on your trackpad.
Another weird edge case? Some modal dialog boxes—like a "Save As" window or an error message—prevent the main window from minimizing. You have to deal with the pop-up first. Apple’s logic is that the app is "busy," so it locks the window in place.
Managing the Dock Clutter
If you minimize a lot, your Dock gets huge. It’s annoying. There is a setting called "Minimize windows into application icon" in the Desktop & Dock settings.
Enable this. Please.
When this is on, your minimized windows don't create new icons on the right side of the Dock. Instead, they disappear into the app icon itself. To get them back, you just right-click (or two-finger click) the app icon and select the window from the list. It keeps everything looking clean.
Actionable Steps for a Cleaner Mac
Don't just read this and go back to clicking that yellow dot like it’s 2005. Try these specific tweaks to change how you work:
- Switch to Scale Effect: Go to System Settings > Desktop & Dock and change the minimize animation. It makes the UI feel 2x faster instantly.
- Enable the Title Bar Double-Click: Set this to "Minimize" in the same settings menu. It’s a much larger target for your mouse.
- Learn Command + H: Start hiding apps instead of minimizing them. It keeps your Dock clean and makes switching between apps with Command + Tab much more fluid.
- Set up a Hot Corner: Set the bottom-left or bottom-right corner to "Desktop" so you can clear your entire screen in half a second.
- Check the "Minimize into Application Icon" box: This prevents your Dock from expanding across the entire width of your screen when you have multiple files open.
Managing windows is really about reducing cognitive load. Every icon you see is a distraction. By mastering these shortcuts, you stop thinking about "how" to move things and just start doing the actual work.