Shortcut to minimize all windows on OS X

Question

Is there a shortcut to minimize all windows like in Windows? In Windows it's Windows Key + D.

Answer 1

There's no exact substitute. Mac OS X is designed more around applications with multiple windows each, e.g. in the separation of application switcher (Shift-)Cmd-Tab and window-cycling (Shift-)Cmd-Backtick, while windows is designed more around windows (largely, but the Windows 7 taskbar recognizes related application windows).

You can press F11 (or Fn-F11, depending on the configuration in System Preferences » Keyboard) to move all windows out of the way to get access to the desktop (part of Exposé, configure in System Preferences » Exposé & Spaces), or press Cmd-Opt-H to hide all applications but the currently active one. To minimize the currently active application's windows, press Cmd-Opt-M, or select Window » Minimize All while keeping Opt pressed.

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The following AppleScript hides all applications but one -- it doesn't seem to be possible to hide all of them.

tell application "System Events" to set visible of every application process to false

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The following AppleScript should minimize all windows. It can be a real pain to restore them though.

tell application "System Events"
    repeat with p in every application process whose visible is true
        click (first button of every window of p whose role description is "minimize button")
    end repeat
end tell

Answer 2

Could also be useful: What are the differences between minimizing and hiding an application? - Apple - Stack Exchange.

Another Applescript for minimizing all windows:

tell application "System Events"
    set procs to file of processes whose visible is true
end tell
repeat with proc in procs
    set proc to proc as text
    try
        tell application proc to set (miniaturized of windows whose miniaturizable is true) to true
    end try
end repeat
tell application "Finder" to set collapsed of windows to true

Answer 3

There is no shortcut to minimize all windows of all applications.

• To hide (all windows of) all applications but the current one, press ⌘⌥H, or ⌘⌥-click on another application's window. If you ⌘⌥H while in an application with no windows up, this will have the effect of hiding all windows.

• To minimize all windows of the current application, press ⌘⌥M, or ⌥-click on the minimize box .
  (In general, the ⌥ key often means “apply to all”, especially for windows.)

• To reveal the desktop, press ⌘Exposé key if you have one, or use any shortcut set in Exposé Preferences for “Show Desktop”.