Why Cmd-Tab hides minimized windows on a Mac

You minimized a window to get it out of the way. Now Cmd-Tab acts like it never existed. This is by design, and there's a workaround almost nobody knows.

What macOS is doing

When you minimize a window it goes to the Dock, and macOS stops counting it as part of the app's working set. ⌘ Tab switches to applications, and if every window of that application is minimized, there's nothing for it to bring forward, so it brings forward nothing. Mission Control leaves minimized windows out of its overview entirely; App Exposé shows them, but as a small row along the bottom edge.

The Option-key trick

Press ⌘ Tab, move to the app whose windows are minimized, then hold ⌥ before you let go of ⌘. macOS restores the app's most recently minimized window. It works, it has worked for years, and it sits in the fine print of Apple's list of Mac keyboard shortcuts.

The catch: it restores one window, the most recent one, and it still can't show you which.

The Dock

Minimized windows live at the right end of the Dock as tiny thumbnails. Clicking one restores it. With a few windows this is fine; with a dozen it's a row of postage stamps, and the Dock has to be visible.

Show minimized windows properly

Third-party switchers can list minimized windows alongside open ones, because they read the window list directly instead of asking macOS what's in front. AltTab does this for every app on the system. Canopy CMD does it for a curated roster and adds the detail: each minimized window appears in the grid as a live snapshot, dimmed and marked, with its page title or file name, so you restore the one you meant rather than the one macOS picked.

Or stop minimizing

Many people minimize because it's the only way to make a window disappear without closing it. Hiding the app (⌘ H) does the same for the whole app and keeps every window in the normal switching flow. And a visual switcher removes most of the reason: if you can always find a window in a second, it doesn't need to be out of the way.