How to maximize a window on Mac (without going full screen)
On Windows, maximize is one button and it does one thing. On a Mac, the button in the same corner is green, it does something else, and the something else hides your menu bar and shoves the window onto its own desktop. If you've ever wanted to maximize a window on Mac and got full-screen mode instead, you weren't doing it wrong — you were using the shortcut for a different feature. Here's the whole picture, and the keyboard route for each.
Three different things macOS calls "big"
macOS has three separate ways to make a window large, and they behave nothing alike:
- Full Screen — the window takes the entire display, the menu bar and Dock auto-hide, and macOS moves the window to its own Space. Other windows are no longer behind it; they're somewhere else entirely.
- Fill — the window expands to the maximum size that still leaves the menu bar and Dock visible. This is the one that matches what "maximize" means on Windows.
- Zoom — the classic Mac behaviour. The window grows (or shrinks) to the size the app thinks is ideal for its content. Sometimes that's the whole screen; in Preview or Terminal it often isn't.
Clicking the green traffic-light button gives you the first one. That single fact explains most of the confusion.
How to maximize a window on Mac with the keyboard
The fastest route is Fn (Globe) + Control + F. That's Fill: the window grows to the full desktop area, menu bar and Dock stay put, and nothing moves to another Space. Apple's tiling shortcuts all share that base:
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Fill (maximize) | Fn + Control + F |
| Return to previous size | Fn + Control + R |
| Center the window | Fn + Control + C |
| Left / right / top / bottom half | Fn + Control + arrow |
| Enter or exit full screen | Control + Command + F |
Fn + Control + R is the one people miss. Fill, decide you hate it, press it,
and the window snaps back to where it was.
The mouse routes (and the Option trick)
- Hover the green button. Don't click — rest the pointer on it and a menu drops down with Fill and the tiling arrangements. Pick Fill.
- Option-click the green button. Holding Option bypasses the menu and performs the old-school Zoom. Option-click again to go back. This is the one to reach for when you want the app's idea of the right size rather than the whole screen.
- Double-click the title bar — but only after you change a setting, which is the next section.
Make double-clicking the title bar maximize
By default, double-clicking a window's title bar does not fill the screen. To get the Windows-style behaviour permanently:
- Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
- Find "Double-click a window's title bar to".
- Set it to Fill.
The other options are Zoom (app-decided size), Minimize (send it to the Dock), and Do Nothing. If you came from Windows, Fill is almost certainly what you want, and it's a thirty-second change that removes a daily papercut.
Give Zoom a keyboard shortcut
Zoom has no default shortcut, but nearly every Mac app exposes it as Window → Zoom in the menu bar — and any menu item can be bound to a key:
- System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
- Add a shortcut, set Application to All Applications.
- Type the menu title exactly:
Zoom. - Pick a combination that isn't already taken.
Because it matches on the menu title, it works in any app that has the item, and silently does nothing in apps that don't.
Why full screen hides your menu bar
That's deliberate — full-screen mode exists to remove chrome, not to enlarge windows. If you like full screen but want the menu bar back, search System Settings for "menu bar" and set "Automatically hide and show the menu bar" to Never. If you mostly wanted a big window with your other windows still behind it, don't fix full screen — use Fill instead.
Fill, Zoom, or full screen?
| You want | Use | Menu bar & Dock | Own Space? |
|---|---|---|---|
| A big window, everything else still reachable | Fill (Fn-Ctrl-F) | Visible | No |
| The app's natural size for its content | Zoom (Option-click green) | Visible | No |
| Zero distractions for one task | Full Screen (⌃⌘F) | Hidden | Yes |
| Big and a second window beside it | Tiling (Fn-Ctrl-arrow) | Visible | No |
A useful rule: full screen is a mode you enter and leave. Fill is just a size. Most of the time you wanted a size.
When maximizing isn't really the goal
Plenty of the time "maximize" is shorthand for "this window is the wrong shape and I want to stop fiddling with it." Fill only answers that when the answer is the entire screen. On a 27-inch or ultrawide display it usually isn't — a full-width browser window is mostly whitespace, and what you actually wanted was two-thirds with your terminal in the remaining third. macOS gives you halves and quarters and stops there; there are no thirds, and the chords get long fast.
That's the gap Let's Tile fills. One shortcut — ⌘ + ↵ — drops a
visible grid over the window you're using. Steer with the arrow keys, press
return, and the window snaps into whatever region you highlighted: full screen,
a half, a third, two-thirds. Because you can see the grid, there's nothing to
memorize, and "maximize" is just the cell that covers everything. The free tier
includes the 3 × 2 grid — halves, thirds, quarters and full screen — with no
time limit; Pro adds custom grids, per-display grids and margins as a one-time
$9.99 purchase, no account and no subscription.
If you'd rather stay native, that's a perfectly good answer too — see our guide to split screen on Mac and every way to resize a window.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a maximize button on Mac? Not exactly. The green button enters full screen when clicked. Hover it and choose Fill, or press Fn-Control-F, to get the true maximize behaviour that keeps the menu bar and Dock visible.
What's the keyboard shortcut to maximize a window on Mac? Fn (Globe) + Control + F fills the screen. Control + Command + F is full screen, which is a different thing. Fn + Control + R returns the window to its previous size.
Why does the green button sometimes not fill the whole screen? You're getting Zoom, not Fill. Zoom sizes the window to fit the app's content, so in apps with a fixed or narrow layout it stops well short of the screen edge.
How do I stop windows going full screen when I click the green button? You can't change what a plain click does, but you rarely need it: set double-clicking the title bar to Fill in System Settings → Desktop & Dock, or learn Fn-Control-F, and you'll stop clicking the green button altogether.
Can I maximize a window on a second monitor? Yes — Fill applies to whichever display the window is on. Moving it there first is the awkward part; see moving a window to another monitor.