View All Open Windows as Thumbnails

In this video, we’re going to look at how it can easily see all of our open windows on the Mac. This way, we can easily select which window we want to have in front. Let’s see how we can see all of our open windows on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

So right now, I have a few different apps open. Let’s go and bring those to the front. They’re all hidden right now. To do that, I just go up under Finder in the menu bar, and then we have Show All. So this is going to show me all of my different windows. I have some browser windows open from Safari. I have Messages. I have my Calendar. I have some documents from Numbers, Pages, and Keynote. So I have several different windows here that are open.

What I would like to do is I would like to see all of those open windows. So then I can easily select which one I want to look at. For example, let’s say I wanted to see what browser windows I had open for Safari. How do I do that?

Well, one way of doing that is just by going to Safari here, clicking on it. It’s going to bring that app upfront, and then what I can do is go up to Window here and select which window I want. Let’s say I wanted to go to Pages. I want to see what documents I have open and Pages. I click on Pages here, and then we go up to Window in the menu bar, and I can select from the two windows here.

But there’s an easier way of doing that. What I can do is I can show all of my windows as thumbnails. And then all I have to do is just click on the window that I want to open. Now we have a few different ways of doing that. I’m going to show you two different ways to do that. One way is through Hot Corners, and then the other way is through the trackpad. So if you have a Mac with a trackpad, I’ll show you a nice shortcut for showing all of your windows.

Let’s first take a look at how you do it with a Hot Corners. With Hot Corners, what we’re able to do is tell our Mac to do something when we bring our cursor down into one of the four corners. So, what I could do is I could say to my Mac, show me all of my open windows when I bring my cursor down in the lower left-hand corner or when I bring it up to the upper left-hand corner.

To do that, we need to go to our System Preferences. So I go up to the Apple menu here, and then we go over to our System Preferences. And then what we need to do is go to Mission Control. It is part of Mission Control. So I click on this, and then you’re going to see Hot Corners. Now I just select this, and then I can set what I want my Mac to do when I place it in one of the four corners. So we’re going to go with the upper left-hand corner. And what I select here is Mission Control. Remember I mentioned this as part of Mission Control, Mission Control has a lot of different features. We’re just going to talk about this one feature. So now I select Mission Control. I click on OK, and we’re going to close this.

Now I want to see all of my windows. Maybe I don’t want to take a look at my Numbers documents, or I want to see what I have open in Safari. To do that, all I have to do is just bring my cursor to the upper left-hand corner, and now I can see all of my windows. So here is one window that’s open in Safari. It’s open to Dan’s Tutorials. Here’s another one, this one’s open to NPR, here’s my collector in Pages, here’s my Calendar, and then here’s my Keynote presentation.

So I can just select any one of these windows to bring it up to the front. So if I want to bring my presentation up here to the front, I click on it and bring it up to the front. I want to go to Dan’s Tutorials. I just bring my cursor up to the top, I select Dan’s Tutorials, and I’m at Dan’s Tutorials.

Now I mentioned that we could also do this with the trackpad. If you have a trackpad, all you have to do is just swipe up with three fingers on your trackpad. When I swipe up with three fingers, I’m in Mission Control, and now I can select any one of my windows. I want to go to my Calendar; I click on it, it brings me to my calendar. I want to go back to my presentation. I swipe up with three fingers, and now I can select my presentation.

If this isn’t working for you with the trackpad, what you may need to do is turn it on. To do that, you just go up to the Apple menu, and then you go over to your System Preferences. This is a preference in the trackpad preference pane. So now I need to go to trackpad here, and then we go to More Gestures. Under More Gestures, you’re going to see Mission Control. We want to make sure that this is turned on. And by default, it’s going to be set for three fingers, but you could set it for four fingers as well. So then you have to swipe up with four fingers. I just leave it at three fingers. And now, when this is selected, again, all I have to do is just swipe up with three fingers, and I have all of my windows there.

So that’s how you can easily see all of your open windows on the Mac. We can do this through Hot Corners, or if you have a trackpad, you can just swipe up with three fingers. To set it up in Hot Corners, you just go to your System Preferences, and then you go to Mission Control. You’ll see Hot Corners in the lower left-hand corner, select that, select which corner you want to move your cursor to, and then you select Mission Control. It is part of Mission Control. And then, if you have a trackpad, you can just swipe up with three fingers. If that isn’t working for you, you may want to check your trackpad settings or your trackpad preferences in System Preferences.

So that is how we can easily see all of our open windows on the Mac.