Working across several Photoshop documents

A hero image, a brandboard, three exports and a reference file, all open in Photoshop, all invisible to the Mac's own switcher. Here's how to move between them without hunting.

Why the Mac can't see your documents

Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign open documents as tabs inside a single application window. macOS only sees that outer window. So ⌘ Tab shows one Photoshop icon, Mission Control shows one Photoshop rectangle, and the file you want is a tab somewhere inside.

Cycle documents inside Photoshop

⌃ Tab moves to the next open document and ⇧⌃ Tab moves back. It's blind, like every cycle shortcut, but it's fast when you have two or three files.

Use the Window menu

The bottom of Photoshop's Window menu lists every open document by file name. Pick one to switch. This is the most reliable built-in method when file names are distinct.

Arrange them

Window → Arrange offers 2-up, 3-up and tiled layouts, and Float All in Windows turns tabs into separate windows. Floating windows do become visible to macOS, at the cost of a messier screen and a habit of hiding behind each other.

See every document at once

Canopy CMD reads the open documents through accessibility and gives each one its own card in the switcher: the file name on the card, a live preview of the canvas, and the same for Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat. Hold ⌥ Tab from any app, type part of a file name, release, and Canopy switches to that document. Tabbed or floating, it doesn't matter.

A naming habit that pays off

Every method above gets better when file names carry meaning. hero-v3.psd beats Untitled-4. Version numbers in the name mean the switcher, the Window menu and your future self all know which is current.