How to hide other apps on Mac: one shortcut for a clean desk, and how to get them back
Eleven apps open, and you need to read one document. You could minimize your way down the stack, or close things you'll want again in ten minutes. Or you can hide other apps on your Mac with one shortcut, ⌥⌘H, and get a clear screen with nothing quit and nothing lost. Here's every way to do it, how to undo it, and when it's the right tool rather than Show Desktop or Stage Manager.
The hide other apps shortcut on Mac
Press ⌥⌘H (Option-Command-H). Every app except the one in front disappears: its windows vanish from the screen, its icon stays in the Dock, and nothing is closed or quit. The app you're in stays exactly as it was.
It's the same as choosing Hide Others from the app menu (the menu named after the app, next to the Apple menu). Almost every Mac app has it, because it's provided by the system rather than by each developer. Two related commands live next to it:
- ⌘H — Hide the app you're in.
- Show All — unhide everything. It has no default shortcut, which is the main annoyance here (more on that below).
One thing to know up front: ⌥⌘H is not a toggle. Pressing it twice doesn't bring the other apps back.
Four other ways to hide apps
The shortcut is the fastest, but there are times when your hand is already on the mouse or the app switcher is already open.
From the Dock
- ⌥⌘-click an app's Dock icon. It switches to that app and hides every other one in a single click. This is Hide Others with the app chosen for you.
- ⌥-click the current app's Dock icon to switch back to the previous app and hide the one you were in.
- Right-click any Dock icon and choose Hide. Hold ⌥ while the menu is open and it changes to Hide Others.
By clicking away
⌥-click the desktop or another app's window. You switch to what you clicked, and the app you're leaving is hidden on the way out. If you work by clearing apps one at a time as you finish with them, this is the most natural version.
From the app switcher
Hold ⌘, tap ⇥ until an app is highlighted, then press H while still holding ⌘. That app hides and the switcher stays open, so you can work along the row hiding several apps without letting go. (Q in the same spot quits the app instead — it's one key away, so look before you press.)
How to get hidden apps back
Hidden apps come back whenever you ask for them, with all their windows where you left them:
| To bring back | Do this |
|---|---|
| One app | ⌘⇥ to it, or click its Dock icon |
| Everything | App menu → Show All |
| Everything, by keyboard | Give Show All a shortcut (see below) |
Give Show All a shortcut
Since Show All has none, add one: System Settings → Keyboard →
Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts, click +, leave it on All
Applications, type Show All exactly as it appears in the menu, and
choose a key combination that doesn't clash with anything — for example
⌃⌥⌘H. Now hiding and
unhiding are both one chord, which turns ⌥⌘H from a one-way trip into a
real "focus, then everything back" pair.
See which apps are hidden
By default, a hidden app's Dock icon looks exactly like a visible one, so it's easy to forget what you've tucked away. A long-standing Dock setting makes hidden apps' icons translucent. In Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dock showhidden -bool true; killall Dock
The Dock restarts and any app you hide from then on gets a faded icon. To
undo it, run the same line with false. This is an unofficial setting
that Apple doesn't document, so if it has no effect on your version of
macOS, nothing is harmed — set it back and move on.
Hide, minimize, Show Desktop, Stage Manager: which one when
These all "get windows out of the way", but they behave very differently afterwards:
| Tool | What happens to the windows | Getting them back | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hide Others (⌥⌘H) | Every other app vanishes | ⌘⇥, Dock or Show All | Focusing on one app for a while |
| Hide (⌘H) | The current app vanishes | ⌘⇥ or Dock | Putting one app away |
| Minimize (⌘M) | One window goes into the Dock | Dock click, or App Exposé | Rarely — it drops out of ⌘⇥'s reach |
| Show Desktop (fnH) | Everything slides to the screen edges | Same shortcut again | A quick trip to a desktop file |
| Stage Manager | Other apps shrink to a strip at the side | Click a thumbnail | A permanent "one app at a time" mode |
The important row is minimize. A minimized window doesn't come back when you ⌘⇥ to its app, which is why windows get "lost" on a Mac. Hiding doesn't have that problem: the switcher brings a hidden app straight back. If you've been minimizing to tidy up, Hide Others is almost always what you wanted. Restoring a minimized window covers the cleanup if your Dock is already full of them, and show desktop on Mac covers the shortcut in that table in detail.
Make it a habit
Hide Others is at its best as the first keystroke of a block of focused work: ⌥⌘H, and the only thing on screen is the thing you meant to do. A few habits make it stick:
- Hide, don't quit, for the apps you'll need again in an hour. Hidden apps cost nothing to bring back and keep their windows and state.
- Pair it with Focus mode. Hiding clears the screen; a Focus clears the notifications. Together they're most of a distraction-free setup.
- Keep two apps, not one. Often the real job is a document and the thing you're writing about. Hide everything, ⌘⇥ to the second app, then put the two side by side. Doing that by dragging is fiddly. Let's Tile does it from the keyboard: it shows a grid over the screen and you snap each window into place in a couple of keystrokes, and the free tier's 3 × 2 grid already covers halves and thirds.
If you'd like windows to stay out of sight without hiding anything, the other approach is to stop leaving the window you want buried. That's a switcher problem rather than a hiding problem, and our guide to switching windows by keyboard covers it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the shortcut to hide all other windows on a Mac?
⌥⌘H hides every app except the one in front. It works on apps, not single windows: other windows of the app you're in stay on screen.
How do I unhide all apps on Mac?
Choose Show All from the app menu of the app you're in. To do it from the keyboard, give Show All a shortcut under Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
Does hiding an app close it?
No. The app keeps running with all its windows, documents and state. It's just not drawn on screen until you switch back to it.
Why doesn't ⌥⌘H work in one app?
A few apps use the chord for something else or remove the Hide Others menu item. In that app, use ⌥⌘-click on its Dock icon instead; it does the same thing.