Mac 101: Apply actions to multiple windows
Here's a tip for those who take a tidy desk to the extreme. When you've got multiple Finder windows open, you can apply an action to all of them at once.Press Command-Option-W to immediately close all windows. Likewise, if you hold down the Option key while pressing the red, yellow and green buttons in the upper left hand corner of a Finder window, you apply the corresponding action to all open windows
- Option + yellow minimizes all windows to the Dock
- Option + green maximizes all windows
- Option + red closes all windows
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fabri said 10:18AM on 4-30-2008
and if you do option+yellow in the dock, you can restore all windows too.
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MonkeySmo said 10:28AM on 4-30-2008
hahah -- nice. now the green button can awkwardly resize your windows in entire groups at a time! :) thanks for the tip -- other than that it's handy. any chance apple will ever suck it up and allow green button to mean "maximize" or is that just crazy talk? maybe steve likes it the way it is and we're all eternally screwed.
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Blaktornado said 11:14AM on 4-30-2008
I can't talk for Steve, but personally, I like the green button the way it is now :S Call me crazy but I do.
serenity said 10:45AM on 4-30-2008
While the post says "Finder", this seems to work on all (at least most) apps.
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Rafe H. said 11:06AM on 4-30-2008
The green button does not maximize, it resizes.
F5 does not refresh your browser.
TUAW is not The Unofficial Windows Blog (or is it?).
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brian said 11:27AM on 4-30-2008
The green button's ability to "right-size" a window is *occasionally* useful but a true maximize/restore like Windows or Linux would be more useful more often. The concept, for those who don't know, is that clicking the green button (technically the 'zoom' button--see below) once is supposed to automatically make the window the best possible size (i.e., exactly fit, if possible) and clicking it again will make it go back to whatever it was. Like I said, it's useful sometimes, but if it doesn't do exactly what you were hoping, it's useless.
There has been a control to do this since System 7 (at least) and it was called the 'zoom' button back then. ('Zoom' like 'zoom in/out', not like 'fast!!!') The 10.5 help says "Click the green zoom (+) button to toggle between a larger and smaller window size." Since it has been around for many many years, I don't think it will go anywhere, nor will there ever be a true maximize/restore thing in OS X. It just won't happen. Same with being able to resize a window from any side. (Though I will say that being able to move a window by grabbing any side is equally useful.)
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Aaron Davies said 11:30AM on 4-30-2008
I miss the "maximize to screen" and "resize to fit" from OS 9. I especially hate the way resize isn't even stable--certain layouts of icons can make multiple resizes constantly change the window size.
I guess you can put me down in the "spatial Finder" camp who wants single, stable windows for each folder, not this randomly-laid-out-browsers stuff.
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keverz said 12:01PM on 4-30-2008
noobs
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Marcos said 12:35PM on 4-30-2008
This is an old, old, old hint. As in for mid 80's old.
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Luigi193 said 1:34PM on 4-30-2008
To make this retro tip more interesting try this:
Hold Shift + option then click on Yellow...
That is also retro, but good for switchers I guess...
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