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In Mac OS X Leopard, is it possible to minimize a window just using combination mouse/keyboard? Or just mouse?

CORRECTION: I mean, how to minimize it, avoiding Command-M or clicking on the yellow button. Just one key from the keyboard and one mouse click, no matter where the mouse pointer is.

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  • The key combo, if it exists, is usually next to the menu item.
    – user31752
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 18:31
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    Minimize is actually the very first menu item in the "Window" menu in most applications. If you had typed "Minimize" into the search box in the help menu, it would have also shown up.
    – Daniel Beck ♦
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 22:34

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What I normally use is double-clicking the titlebar of the window. I think now this option may be off by default. Go to System Preferences > Appearance and check the box for "Double-click a window's title bar to minimize". This offers a much larger target area than the minimize button.

A couple other tips that involve adding in the modifier keys along with the double-click action. (Some of these may not work in all apps, or might not be available in older versions of OS X--sorry, having gone through 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.4 and 10.5, it can begin to get a bit difficult to remember when which feature was introduced).

Anyway, hold down the Option (alt) key and double-click on the window title bar to Minimize All windows (from the current application) to the Dock. (Option in this context means "apply to all"). Similarly, if there are multiple windows from a particular application that are minimized in the Dock, Option-click on one of the window's icon to have them all brought back out.

As with virtually any command or feature that involves animation, the Shift key can be used to impress your friends. ;-) It causes any animation to go in slow motion rather than normal speed. So, Shift-Option-double-click on titlebar minimizes all windows from an app in slow motion, etc.

Regarding using a single key (such as just pressing M without any modifier keys), no you can't do that as far as I know. Any kind of action like that will require at least one modifier key — (Option (alt), Command (⌘), or Control— in combination with the "regular" keys. The modifier key is needed so that the application can know that it should interpret the letter M as a command, and not as plain text.

Updated:

Here's Apple's list of keyboard shortcuts:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

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  • this is great! I did not know that. Where can I find extended info about?
    – Open the way
    Commented Nov 25, 2010 at 22:36
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⌘M will minimize the window to the dock.

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    unless the application have overriden that key combination, or is a stupid X11 application (that pretty much ignores everything).
    – o0'.
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 17:49

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