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Pressing Command + Tab in OSX brings up the "alt-tab" or window switcher UI. After pressing Command + Tab, if you continue to hold Command key the window stays on the screen. You can also move your mouse cursor over an icon and the rounded box changes to highlight that application's icon.

How can I configure OSX so the mouse passing over the Command+Tab window has no effect?

I don't want the currently selected application to change when the mouse passes over it. I only want to advance forward/backward using the normal keyboard shortcuts.

Mac Command-Tab menu

My underlying issue is the Command + Tab window on my 13" Macbook Air takes up a substantial proportion of my screen. I have a bad habit of moving my mouse as I'm switching windows with Command + Tab, causing the selection box in the window switcher to move out of order.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Consensus[1] is that this isn't possible with built-in tools; however, you can use LiteSwitch X, a custom (free) command-tab app switcher, to disable mouse interaction in the command-tab view. I believe the preference is "Disable mouse rollover selection" under Advanced in the LiteSwitch preference pane.

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  • LiteSwitch X does exactly what I needed, allowing mouseover interaction to be disabled. It has a few other quirks that take some getting used to but works great. Looks like it uses about 15MB of memory which isn't too bad.
    – John Kary
    Jul 29, 2014 at 17:00
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    This is just stupid you can't change something that basic from settings. Sometimes I wonder if osx has worse UX than Linux
    – llamerr
    Mar 30, 2018 at 13:30
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You can prevent mouse interaction with Keyboard Maestro's app switcher:

Demo:

Alternatively, you can lock the mouse position whilst the ⌘ key is still held down:

However, this doesn't appear to be possible without third party tools. You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this on the following page:

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    Thanks for your answer. Upvoted because it appears this will work, but I don't need all the other features this application offers so it feels a bit overkill for my preference. I hope it's useful to anyone else finding this question.
    – John Kary
    Jul 29, 2014 at 17:02

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