Learn the different ways to switch between open applications on the Mac.
In this lesson for macOS, I look at how to switch between your open applications including using keyboard shortcuts. Some of the ways to switch between open apps include clicking on an app’s window, clicking on the application icon in the Dock, and my favorite way, using keyboard shortcuts. See the different ways to switch between open app on the Mac in this lesson.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
Introduction: Now, let’s look at the different ways we can switch between our open apps on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. Let’s first go and open up a couple of apps. I’m going to open up my Contacts and let’s go and open up Calendar.
Switching Apps by Application Window: Now, if I want to go back to my Contacts, one way of doing that is by clicking on the Contacts window, but if we look, you’re going to see that my Calendar covers the Contacts window, so what I would have to do is I would have to go and move this window around.
Let’s go ahead and move it. Then I can click on Contacts here, and it brings it to the front. I want to go back to my Calendar, I click on Calendar, and now we’re back in our Calendar. That works well when you do not have a lot of windows or a lot of apps open, but let’s go and open up a few more apps. I’m going to bring this window back to the center, so it’s covering my Contacts. Now, let’s go and open up Safari. Then let’s go and open up a Finder window. I click on it, and now we have a Finder window. Now, I have a few more apps open. I have my Finder, my Calendar, Safari, and Contacts, as well as ScreenFlow and OmniFocus.
Now, if I want to go back to my Contacts, what I would have to do is I would have to move these windows around. Well, now that I have a few more apps and windows, it’s not a very efficient way of switching between your open apps. Let’s go and move my window here. Now, I can see my Safari. I still need to get to Contacts, so what I have to do is I have to move Safari. Well, now, I can see my Calendar. So, I click on it, and I have to move my Calendar, and now I can see my Contacts. I click on it, and it brings my Contacts forward. Again, not very efficient.
Switching Apps by using the Dock: If you have a few windows open or a few apps open, clicking on the window works great, but if you have a lot of apps or a lot of windows, it can be very inefficient. What are some other ways to switch between your open apps? Well, one way is by using the app icon in the Dock. Let’s say I wanted to bring the Finder back up to the front, the Finder window. All I have to do is go down to the Finder here, click on it, and bring my Finder window back. Pretty simple. I want to bring my Calendar to the front. I click on the Calendar. Again, pretty simple, and it works great, but we have another way of doing this.
Switching Apps by using Keyboard Shortcuts: We can also use a keyboard shortcut. Now, before I show you how the keyboard shortcut works, let’s first look at these apps in the Dock. You’re going to see that the calendar app here has a dot below it. This means that this is an open app. If I go over to reminders here, you’re going to see it does not have a dot below it. That means that that app is not open. If I click on it, it will open it and bring it to the front. When we use keyboard shortcuts, what it does is, it just switches between your open apps. It’s only going to switch between your apps that have a dot below them.
How do we use keyboard shortcuts? Well, all we have to do is hold down the Command key and the Tab key. When I do that, we’re going to get an overlay on our Mac. Let’s go ahead and do that, Command key and the Tab key, and we can see we have an overlay. The Finder is now highlighted. If I were to let go of the Command key, I’m still holding onto the Command key; if I were to let go of the Command key, what it would do would be switch to the Finder. We can see that we are in the Calendar here.
Now, when I let go, I’m in the Finder. That’s how we can easily switch. We use the keyboard shortcut Command-Tab, and it will only show me the apps in this overlay that have the black dot below them. Now, let’s switch to my Contacts, Command key, and then the Tab key. Now, I just hit the Tab key again. We can see that Contacts is highlighted, and now I’m in Contacts. Each time we hit the Tab key, what it’s going to do is it’s going to highlight the next app. It’s going to go from left to right. I’m going to hold down the Command key and the Tab key.
Now, when I hit the Tab key, watch what happens. You’re going to see a highlight, the next app, to the right. Right now, the Finder is highlighted. Now the Calendar is highlighted. Currently, Safari is highlighted, ScreenFlow, OmniFocus, and Contacts. I let go. It’s going to bring Contacts to the front. We can also go in the reverse. We can go from right to left. If I hold down the Command key and the Tab key and now if I hold down the Shift key, so it’s Command, Shift, and Tab. Watch what happens. Shift key, now it’s going from right to left. I let go of the Shift key, goes from left to right.
We can also use the cursor in conjunction with this. I want to go to Contacts, all I have to do is bring my cursor above Contacts here, and it highlights it, I let go, and we’re in Contacts. I want to go to Calendar, Command, and Tab brings up the overlay. I bring my cursor over to Calendar, and it brings my Calendar. We can even use this to quit apps. Let’s say I wanted to quit out of Contacts, Command-Tab, tab over until I’m at Contacts, and now, all I have to do is hit the Q key. I already have the Command key.
Remember, Command-Q quits our apps. Now, all I have to do is just Command-Q; it just quit out of Contacts. Now, let’s quit out of Calendar using this, Command-Tab, until I get to the Calendar, and then I hit the Q key, and now I’ve just quit out of Calendar. I hit the Q key again; I quit out of Safari.
That’s how we can switch between our open apps on the Mac.