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Easily focus on the Finder by hiding everything else on the Mac screen, which can be accomplished with just two clicks in macOS.
If you’re in the Finder and lots of other application windows are cluttering your desktop, it can be difficult to just focus on that Finder window. If you are looking for a file and there is too much on the screen, you can start minimizing all other windows, but this may take a while.
You can, however, make things much clearer with a few key presses and a click of the mouse.
Just hold down Option + Command on your keyboard and click anywhere on the Finder desktop. After clicking, all other application windows will temporarily disappear from view.
Alternatively, you can Option-Click Desktop to hide only the frontmost app.
Although banned from the desktop, these apps still run in the background, so you don’t have to worry about losing work. However, rather than redisplaying all open windows, you can take the opportunity to display only the most immediately useful windows.
To recover windows from any app, just Command-Tab to cycle through open apps to the one you want, then release the keys. The selected application will be brought to the front with all its windows.
You can also click the app icon in the dock to display all windows for that app.
The Option-Desktop-click trick isn’t familiar to many Mac users, but it’s a quick and powerful way to declutter your desktop in an instant.
AppleInsider may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made through links on our site.
Easily focus on the Finder by hiding everything else on the Mac screen, which can be accomplished with just two clicks in macOS.
If you’re in the Finder and lots of other application windows are cluttering your desktop, it can be difficult to just focus on that Finder window. If you are looking for a file and there is too much on the screen, you can start minimizing all other windows, but this may take a while.
You can, however, make things much clearer with a few key presses and a click of the mouse.
Just hold down Option + Command on your keyboard and click anywhere on the Finder desktop. After clicking, all other application windows will temporarily disappear from view.
Alternatively, you can Option-Click Desktop to hide only the frontmost app.
Although banned from the desktop, these apps still run in the background, so you don’t have to worry about losing work. However, rather than redisplaying all open windows, you can take the opportunity to display only the most immediately useful windows.
To recover windows from any app, just Command-Tab to cycle through open apps to the one you want, then release the keys. The selected application will be brought to the front with all its windows.
You can also click the app icon in the dock to display all windows for that app.
The Option-Desktop-click trick isn’t familiar to many Mac users, but it’s a quick and powerful way to declutter your desktop in an instant.