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I know how to Hide (Cmd+H) or Minimize (Cmd+M) a focused window in OS X, but I can't find a keyboard shortcut or even a menu item to restore, unhide, unminimize, or otherwise show a window that I've hidden or minimized.

Anyone have a suggestion?

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5 Answers

up vote 13 down vote accepted

This way requires a bit of practice:

  • press ⌘ ⇥ (Command-Tab) to show your running apps. Keep holding ⌘.

  • press ⇥ until you've selected the minimized app

  • press the ⌥ (Option) key, and let go of the ⌘ key. You must depress the Command key after pressing the Option key!

Note that this only works for an app with all of its windows minimized. If there is already a visible window of the app you won't be able to get to the minimized one with this trick.

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brandonjp: Please mark this as answer as this perfectly answers the question... @evaneykelen: holy shit dude, that's simple. The problem is that holy shit is that unintuitive. I think this is the perfect answer for this question. WOW I am simply baffled by how unintuitive and unknown this bit of info is. – dlikhten Sep 28 '11 at 4:55
Thank you, thank you, thank you. – boehj Sep 28 '11 at 14:46
ALL PRAISE BE TO YOU, SIR. How on earth did you figure this out?? – JSW Oct 11 '11 at 20:52
This is so cool! This is not well known on the internet! Thanks! ;) – Sander Versluys Dec 8 '11 at 13:22
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this is the ugliest unintuitive workflow i've ever seen. thanks for the answer - here's to hoping apple comes up with something better soon! – rev Feb 1 at 21:30
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up vote 7 down vote

Another option is to press ⌃F3 to bring focus to the dock, from there you can navigate left or right and select the window you want to unminimize.

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Yeah. That's endedup being the most common method I use. Except, I assigned a new key combo (I use: cmd + alt + ctrl + down arrow) to focus the dock, the start typing the name if the app and it goes to it. Hitting return brings it to the front. It works just fine, but still I wish there was a more symmetrical method baked in. – brandonjp Jan 21 '11 at 4:14
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up vote 4 down vote

To show a window that you've hidden with ⌘H, you can unhide it and bring it back to the foreground by switching to it with ⌘⇥ along with perhaps ⌘`.

A clunky way to bring up a window minimized using ⌘M is to bring up the Application Exposé using F10, then navigate down to the realm of minimized windows to select the one you want to restore.

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I think this is about the best option when ⌘H Hiding an app... I just get annoyed that there's no native solution to restore a ⌘M Minimized window. When I Minimize a window, then Cmd+Tab back to that app... I can't find a shortcut to get the minimized window back. – brandonjp Oct 6 '10 at 18:04
@brandonjp: I've edited my answer to include one way of restoring a minimized window. I think it's a bit inefficient, personally, but it's a bit easier than a touchpad sometimes. – fideli Oct 6 '10 at 18:29
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+1 for using Keyboard glyphs and for spelling Exposé correctly. – Wuffers Oct 11 '10 at 0:25
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up vote 3 down vote

Unminimizes all windows of the current app:

tell app (path to frontmost application as text)
    try
        set miniaturized of windows to false -- most apps
    end try
    try
        set collapsed of windows to false -- at least Finder
    end try
end tell

This unminimizes a single window if Minimize windows into application icon isn't checked:

try
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Dock"
        click (last UI element of list 1 where role description is "minimized window dock item")
    end tell
end try
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!! Nice work! The 'Dock Click' version above (second one) is not as reliable depending on if my app is stuck in the dock or not, minmized windows are stacked, etc. I modified the script to toggle the state (if minimized then unminimize and vice versa), saved it as a service via Automator. However, it takes about 30+ seconds after hitting the shortcut keys until the action actually occurs. – brandonjp Mar 24 '11 at 15:08
First, the delay is only when running it as a service created in Automator. When I run it in Applescript Editor it's lightning fast! As for the Dock stuff... I've got my minimized windows set to hide behind their app icon (aka they don't show to the far right), so it was still working for apps that are not set to 'Keep in Dock' – brandonjp Mar 26 '11 at 2:39
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up vote 1 down vote

Some applications bind commands to their windows (Terminal comes to mind, but iTunes also with Cmd-Opt-1/2), you can restore those that way.

You want Witch for the kind of functionality you want. And having the zoom button accessible via keyboard is also pure bliss.

You can't hide windows, only applications. Unhide via Cmd-Tab (the hidden applications are to the right, so use Cmd-Shift-Tab to start there).

You can always open the Help menu's text field and type the window name (if you know it) to access its Window menu sub-item.

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Yeah, I've been using Witch for a couple years now, and really love it. Just hoping that there was a native shortcut for bring minimized windows back to life. – brandonjp Oct 6 '10 at 18:09
Now where would then be the reason to use and appreciate Witch? :-) No native way except where the programmers explicitly thought of it. – Daniel Beck Oct 6 '10 at 18:22
Of course, you can always use Cmd-? for the search field and type the window's name. Thinking about it, I'll add it to my answer. – Daniel Beck Oct 6 '10 at 18:22
what is the zoom button you speak of? – Eddified Oct 21 '10 at 5:04
@Eddified: The third, green window button (close, minimize, zoom). It doesn't always maximize, so it's not called that. – Daniel Beck Oct 21 '10 at 9:16
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