How to switch between windows on a Mac

Command-Tab switches between apps, not windows. Inside one app, Command-backtick moves between its windows. Control-Up Arrow opens Mission Control with every window on the current desktop, and Control-Down Arrow opens App Exposé with one app’s windows, minimized ones included. To see every window of every app at once, and type to find one, you need a third-party switcher.

Last updated: September 2026

The short version

1. Command-Tab cycles through open apps. Hold Command and tap Tab.
2. Command-backtick (the key above Tab) cycles through the windows of the app you are in.
3. Control-Up Arrow, or a swipe up with three fingers, opens Mission Control: every window on the current desktop.
4. Control-Down Arrow opens App Exposé: every window of the current app, minimized ones included.
5. Right-click an app in the Dock, or open its Window menu, for a list of its windows by title.
6. A third-party switcher shows every window of every app in one place, on one shortcut.

The rest of this page goes through each one: the shortcut, what it shows, and the point where it stops being enough.

Command-Tab switches apps, not windows

Hold Command and press Tab. A row of icons appears, one per open app, in the order you last used them. Tab moves right, Shift-Tab moves left, and the arrow keys work too. Let go of Command on the icon you want and that app comes forward, with the window you last used in it on top.

The row does a few more things while it is open. Press Q on an icon to quit that app, or H to hide it. Press the Down Arrow on an icon to see that app's windows laid out, then pick one with the arrows and Return. Press Escape to close the row without switching.

Here is where it stops. There is one icon per app, so a Chrome with four windows is one icon, and Command-Tab always lands on the window you used most recently. If you wanted one of the other three, you have arrived in the right app and are still looking. A minimized window stays in the Dock when you switch to its app, unless you hold Option while you let go of Command. Apple's own page on managing app windows lists the shortcuts.

Command-backtick moves between windows of one app

The backtick key sits above Tab, to the left of the 1. Command-backtick brings the next window of the app you are in to the front, and Command-Shift-backtick goes the other way. Nothing appears on screen. The windows swap.

macOS calls this "Move focus to next window", and you can give it a different key under System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard. On a non-US keyboard the shortcut can sit on a different key, and that pane shows the one your layout uses, which is the usual answer when a guide written for a US keyboard seems wrong.

It stops at the edge of the app. It cannot reach a window of another app, and it skips minimized windows. With two windows it is perfect. With eight, you cycle blind and count.

Mission Control shows the current desktop

Press Control-Up Arrow, swipe up with three or four fingers (the gesture is set under System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures), or press the Mission Control key, which is F3 on an Apple keyboard. Every window on the current desktop spreads out so that none of them overlap. Move the pointer over one and click it.

Along the top, the Spaces bar shows your other desktops and any full-screen apps as small thumbnails. Click one to go there, or drag a window onto one to move it. Under System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control, "Group windows by application" stacks each app's windows together, which helps once the layout gets busy. Apple's guide to Mission Control has the settings in full.

Where it stops. It shows one desktop at a time, so a window on another desktop is a thumbnail of that desktop, not a window you can see. Minimized windows sit in the Dock, not in the layout. And there is nothing to type: with thirty windows open the thumbnails get small and you scan them by eye. If Mission Control is how you find windows today, here is how Better Window Switcher compares with Mission Control.

App Exposé shows one app's windows

Press Control-Down Arrow while an app is in front and its windows spread out. Minimized ones appear too, in a row along the bottom. You can also swipe down with three or four fingers once the App Exposé gesture is turned on under System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures, or right-click the app's icon in the Dock and choose Show All Windows.

For one app with many windows this is the best of the built-in ways, because it is the only one that shows minimized windows as pictures. It stops at one app.

The Dock and the Window menu list windows by title

Right-click an app in the Dock and its windows are listed by title in the menu. Pick one and it comes forward, minimized or not. Every app also has a Window menu in the menu bar with the same list: a checkmark marks the front window and a diamond marks a minimized one.

Slow, but complete for that one app, and the only built-in way that gives you titles to read rather than pictures to recognize.

Stage Manager arranges, it does not find

Since macOS Ventura, Stage Manager sits in Control Center. Turn it on and the window you are working in takes the middle of the screen while your other recent windows wait as thumbnails along the left edge. Click a thumbnail to swap, or drag windows together to make a set that comes and goes as one.

It is a way of keeping the desk tidy, not a way of finding a window. The strip holds a handful of recent items and the rest fall off it, it still shows one desktop at a time, and there is nothing to type into.

What none of them do

Put the six together and one thing is still missing: a single view of every window of every app, on every desktop, minimized ones included, that you can type into. Windows users know this as Alt-Tab, and it is the first thing many of them look for on a Mac. macOS does not have it. Command-Tab is an app switcher by design, and the rest each cover one app or one desktop.

Third-party window switchers for Mac

These are the ones people actually use. Prices and versions are as of September 2026 and can move, so each product's own site is the reference.

AltTab

Free and open source. Press Option-Tab and a row of thumbnails appears, one per window, including minimized windows and windows on other desktops. Search, two extra appearance styles and more shortcuts are part of a paid Pro tier, sold as a one-time purchase. It ships in more than twenty languages. If you want free and keyboard-first, this is the one. Here is how Better Window Switcher compares with AltTab.

Contexts

A text list rather than thumbnails: hold a modifier, start typing, and the list narrows to the window titles that match. A one-time purchase of 9.99 USD. Fast for people who read faster than they scan, and its site lists macOS versions up to Sequoia. Here is how Better Window Switcher compares with Contexts.

Witch

From Many Tricks, 14 USD once. It switches apps, windows and tabs from list panels you can lay out horizontally, vertically or in the menu bar, with search built in, and it runs on anything back to macOS 10.13 High Sierra.

TabTab

Built for browser tabs first. It reaches tabs in eleven browsers plus editors and tools such as VS Code, Xcode, Figma and Notion, and its search matches URLs rather than titles alone. Free for your five most recent windows and tabs, then from 18.99 USD for one device. Here is how Better Window Switcher compares with TabTab.

Better Window Switcher

Ours. Press Option-Tab and every window and every browser tab becomes a card in a 3D arrangement, with seven arrangements to choose from. Press Space and type a few letters to narrow windows and tabs together, typos included. Tabs from Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi and Opera, and from Finder and Terminal, get cards of their own and stack into one pile per window. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later, in English only, and it is a one-time purchase after a 7 day trial with no account. What it does, in full, or download it.

Which one to pick

• You want free, and a keyboard row of thumbnails is enough: AltTab.
• You would rather read titles than look at pictures: Contexts.
• Your day lives in browser tabs across many browsers and editors: TabTab.
• You want to recognize windows rather than read them, with tabs as cards and something to type into: Better Window Switcher.

You keep Command-Tab either way. AltTab and Better Window Switcher both default to Option-Tab and leave Command-Tab alone, so nothing you already know stops working.

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