I want to cycle trough the windows of the currently active application on Mac OS X. Some applications respond to Ctrl + Tab but they all seem to do something else. I want to switch between the Entourage mainscreen and the message I am writing for instance. Is there a such a keyword shortcut?

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6 Answers

up vote 23 down vote accepted

Command + ` (the ~ key) works with many programs.

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OK, so I have to ask, how do you get the key effect? – Gareth Simpson Jul 15 '09 at 9:15
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The HTML tag "KBD" is allowed. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/1777/… – Stephen Jennings Jul 15 '09 at 9:30
This seems to work only in English keyboards ? I have a Japanese keyboard and the <kbd>Command</kbd> + <kbd>`</kbd> does nothing for me. I defined <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Tab</kbd> in Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard & Text input > Move focus to next window – nacho4d Oct 6 '11 at 4:58
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There is a piece of shareware called Witch that emulates Windows alt+tab. It shows all windows in all applications, sorted by application. It costs €9.95.

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Also Optimal Layout which is in the App Store – Mark Jun 28 '11 at 21:22
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Depends on the application but most of them support:

  • Command + Shift + [

  • Command + Shift + ]

for switching between tabs.

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It depends on your settings. Default settings depend on your locale.

See System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts to see what the keys are on your system for e.g. "Move focus to next window in active application"

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Use CMD + `. It switches focus between windows in the current application. To switch between applications use CMD + TAB.

Not quite the same as Windows' switching between all active windows, but close enough once you get used to the distinction.

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cmd+tab works great

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That's between apps (equivalent to Windows alt+tab) - the question is about within a single app – Cebjyre Jul 15 '09 at 8:26
I didn't even knew about the existence of that in windows :-O – OscarRyz Jul 15 '09 at 11:56
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