What's the easiest way to move an off-screen window back on-screen on Mac OS X?

Question

It seems that Mac OS X has a tendency to leave some windows off-screen at times, especially when I disconnect an external monitor from my MacBook. What's the easiest way to move the window back on-screen when it's not possible to grab the title bar and drag it back onto the screen?

XvsXP.com recommends adjusting your screen resolution downward to have off-screen windows "snap back into view" and then adjust your screen resolution back to its original setting. In OS X 10.4 Tiger, I had a script that brought all off-screen windows back on-screen, but in my upgrades to Leopard and now Snow Leopard, I don't seem to have that script.

Any better solutions out there? What's your recommendation?

Configuration

• Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard
• 13" MacBook Unibody
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Answer 1

This method seems to work: click on the Window menu, then click Zoom

Answer 2

I had this problem with Parallels desktop 6 in OS X Lion, whereby the VM's actual window was hidden off-screen, and only visible in Mission control, and when you swiped between spaces.

So for those with the same problem, and hopefully this is applicable elsewhere: The solution is to right click on the Application's icon in the Dock, then go to the 'Options' menu item, and under 'Assign To' choose 'This Desktop'. That should move the app window back on to the current desktop. Still preferred the old spaces pref pane for this sort of thing - much faster.

Hope that helps those stumbling upon this post, with the same problem with Parallels (as I did)

Answer 3

Go to System Preferences --> Displays --> Detect Displays

It will force the system to rescan, and detect the missing monitor... That typically solves the problem when I run into it.

Also, if that doesn't work, and your system still believes that the monitor is connected try two things:

1 - If you have the cable still connected (but unconnected to a monitor), disconnect it. 2 - On the arrangement tab on the displays panel, try "Gather Windows". That should gather all the windows to the active / primary monitor.

Answer 4

Have you tried using Expose? I believe the default binding is F11.

Answer 5

Three ideas:

• Cmd-F1 (or Cmd-fn-F1 if you've configured your macbook keyboard to use normal function keys) toggles your displays between mirror mode and extended desktop. A side effect is that windows get moved around somewhat unpredictably. This might move the missing window to somewhere visible. This likely requires the external monitor to be connected though.

• Turn on Spaces, hit the hot key to displays the spaces overview and see if your missing window outline is visible there. If so, drag it to where you want it to be.

• Quit the application and relaunch. Definitely a non-ideal solution and not practical if there's unsaved work.

Answer 6

For extreme cases, like I'm encountering with Interface Builder, you can try re-connecting your second monitor, finding that missing window and then dragging it back to the primary display.

Now, to check your work, quit the program and then re-launch it ensure that all of the desired windows are living on your primary display.

Now, disconnect the second monitor - things should be ok.

Answer 7

I've found that deleting the offending reference items from Interface Builder's plist sometimes helps. I've even tried to set the window's position via AppleScript with no luck.

Answer 8

If you are willing to look at third party apps then Optimal Layout, an app I developed, offers keyboard commands for controlling and organizing app windows: http://most-advantageous.com/optimal-layout/

Answer 9

The position of the views are saved in the nib files themselves. The way I fixed this was to make a change to the View and then saved it. Shut down Interface Builder and started it again. My window and view where gathered back to the main screen. I have to say that I tried all the options before doing this. That is the Zoom, deleting the .plist from Library/Preferences, F8, Gather Windows... None of those worked. I hope this helps.

Answer 10

None of the above worked for me, but I managed a fix by changing: -System Preferences -Hardware -Displays

Then go to the 'arrangement' 'tab' and drag the external window on top of the internal one (instead of side-by-side).

Answer 11

The easiest way to solve this is by turning on Spaces and hitting the hotkey, usually F8, and dragging the windows around in that view. This was suggested above by another user (Doug Harris) as well.

Answer 12

On OSX Lion, all I had to do was right click the window in the system task bar tray, choose Hide, and then do the same and select Show and the window appeared.

Answer 13

Haven't read trough the whole tread but the easiest way I found was to change the resolution of the sceen: System preference -> Displays and then change resolution. This will force your computer to render the display again and reposition all open windows.

Then just switch it back to your original resolution settings and everything should be back in to place.

Answer 14

I had to plug my external monitor back in to move the app in question (RSA SecurID) back onto my laptop screen. I tried a variety of the other suggestions on this page. I'm on OS X Lion.