This way requires a bit of practice:

  • press ⌘ ⇥ (Command-Tab) to show your running apps. Keep holding .

  • press until you've selected the minimized app

  • press the (Option) key, and let go of the key. You must release the Command key after pressing the Option key!

Note that this only works for an app with all of its windows minimized. If there is already a visible window of the app you won't be able to get to the minimized one with this trick.

Answer from evaneykelen on Stack Exchange
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/mac › shortcut to unhide all hidden windows
r/mac on Reddit: Shortcut to unhide all hidden windows
December 27, 2022 -

I got to know about a shortcut "Command + Option + H" that hides "all of the windows of all apps", except for the "windows of the frontmost app, which remains active". But what is the shortcut to reverse this change, i.e unhide all those hidden windows.

Cycling through all the apps using cmd + tab and individually unhiding is a way but how to unhide all app windows at once...... Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Discussions

Hotkey to "Show All" Windows After Hiding them with ⌥⌘H
In the main menu of most apps, when you click the app name in the Menu Bar, there is an option to Hide the current app (hotkey ⌘H), to Hide Others (hotkey ⌥⌘H), and to Show All, which will unhide any that have been hidden. But the Show All menu choice has no hotkey. More on forum.keyboardmaestro.com
🌐 forum.keyboardmaestro.com
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September 28, 2023
Is it possible to overview all active windows like you can view hidden windows?
Control+down arrow is a keyboard shortcut for the app expose feature. CTRL+up arrow brings up Mission Control, which shows all your windows and spaces. The main section of Mission Control only shows active windows on the current desktop. Moving the mouse cursor near the top of the screen will show previews of all your desktops and you can swipe or use the keyboard to cycle through them, looking at all your open windows. Mouseover a window to highlight it and press space to zoom in on a selected window. What you're seeing isn't an overview bar; it's just where app expose shows the app's minimized windows. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/MacOS
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January 18, 2022
display - How to retrieve windows that have moved 'off-screen' - Ask Different
I have a similar issue in my Mac when opening MS Powerpoint as it won't show on screen. The simplest way is to go to the Menu Bar of Powerpoint on the top of your Mac screen and click "Window" then under that click "Arrange All". The missing/hidden PowerPoint windows will show More on apple.stackexchange.com
🌐 apple.stackexchange.com
August 27, 2010
Show Hidden Windows files on a Mac - Apple Community
Hi, I have a folder that I have copied from Windows XP to Mac. The files in the folder were hidden when I copied on the mac. I can see the folder but cannot see the files in the folder. How do I see these files on my mac? It is frustrating as I have a few important files in that folder that ... More on discussions.apple.com
🌐 discussions.apple.com
August 17, 2010
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Apple Community
discussions.apple.com › thread › 630984
How to "unhide" apps/windows? - Apple Community
September 7, 2006 - 😉 Dr. Smoke Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X ... The key combination "Command-Tab" (or "Apple-Tab") should do what you want. If you've hidden any application with command-H, hold command and keep using tab to find the application and bring back the app with the active window.
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Alvin Alexander
alvinalexander.com › blog › post › mac-os-x › mac-tip-re-displaying-hidden-windows
MacOS tip: How to show hidden windows | alvinalexander.com
Instantly your hidden window comes back into view. Note that when you looked at the Safari icon in the Dock it had a black triangle beneath it. This indicates that the Safari application is currently running. (This is true in the "Tiger" release of Mac OS X, but this may change in the "Leopard" release.) There are a couple of other approaches you can take to show ...
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Lectrobyte
lectrobyte.com › macos-hide-and-show-windows
macOS - Hide and Show Windows - Lectrobyte
January 11, 2025 - To hide the current window you have selected in front of you... Press Command + H on your keyboard. The window will be hidden from view, but you can show it again by clicking on the application's icon on the dock.
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Macworld
macworld.com › home › news
Access hidden minimized windows | Macworld
January 7, 2023 - Minimizing windows to the Dock is one way to keep them hidden yet easily available. That is, they’re easily available unless you also hide the application that owns those windows. When you do that, the minimized windows vanish from the dock.
Find elsewhere
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Alvin Alexander
alvinalexander.com › blog › post › mac-os-x › how-un-hide-show-display-hidden-mac-os-x-window
How to un-hide a hidden Mac OS X window | alvinalexander.com
As an example of using the Dock technique, I’m currently using TextMate to type this blog entry. Pressing [Command][h] hides my current TextMate window, but then if I go to the dock and click the TextMate icon, my application window is restored. I hope this tip on how to un-hide a hidden Mac window (or hidden Mac application) has been helpful.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/macos › is it possible to overview all active windows like you can view hidden windows?
r/MacOS on Reddit: Is it possible to overview all active windows like you can view hidden windows?
January 18, 2022 -

When pressing control + down the window positions will be highlighted on the desktop and any hidden windows will appear above the dock in a clear easy to use overview.

Is it possible to show active windows in this overview bar as well? And if so, is there any way or plug-in that can make the bar appear when you hover your mouse over the dock?

If nothing exists I’d be interested in writing something for it myself, but as I haven’t done any MacOS based development yet I have no idea what’s feasible or even possible.

Top answer
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Chealion answered this on SuperUser.

I won't copy and paste his answer here, as he got the credit not me.

But basically, what you could do is (quoted from Chealion's answer) :

A second method of arranging the Windows so you can see them (if for some reason they're staying off screen) is to change to the application that owns the window in question, hold the Option key down and choose "Arrange in Front" from the Window menu. It will then arrange all the windows of that application in a cascade from the top left of the screen.

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For completeness:

From my answer originally at Server Fault Question 7237:

When a monitor is unplugged (including the adapter as well if applicable - leaving the adapter leaves OS X thinking the monitor is still plugged in) all the Windows should move onto your main screen. Occasionally some windows (eg. Firefox) will keep their position on the very far right of the screen leaving you just enough room to grab the title bar and move it where you'd like to.

One method is before you unplug the external monitor (or before you unplug the dongle) is to open up the Displays Preference Pane in System Preferences and click on the "Gather Windows" button. This is supposed to bring every window on the main screen and the option does not appear if you don't have a second monitor plugged in.

A second method of arranging the Windows so you can see them (if for some reason they're staying off screen) is to change to the application that owns the window in question, hold the Option key down and choose "Arrange in Front" from the Window menu. It will then arrange all the windows of that application in a cascade from the top left of the screen.

Lastly, there are several AppleScripts available (eg. this one at Snipplr) that will also grab every window off screen and move it on screen for you.

There is also a nifty shareware app called Stay that will help automate a lot of this for you, while there is also MarcoPolo which will do much more than just notice if a monitor is disconnected and allows you to run scripts (in case you want to do more than just rearrange the windows).

🌐
Apple Community
discussions.apple.com › thread › 2546245
Show Hidden Windows files on a Mac - Apple Community
August 17, 2010 - OK. I set this up so long ago that I forgot that's not a normal setting in the com.apple.finder.plist file. Do this in the Terminal app first: *defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1* Quit the Terminal app. Now all hidden things should be visible.
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Switching To Mac
switchingtomac.com › home › how-to › how to hide and unhide all windows on your mac
How to Hide and Unhide All Windows on Your Mac
June 15, 2021 - However, you can’t unhide all ... Command + Tab) or the application icons on the Dock to reveal hidden windows one by one. An alternative method to hide all Mac windows is through Mission Control‘s Show Desktop function....
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Medium
medium.com › @jamiecarter7 › how-to-force-a-window-thats-off-screen-to-show-on-screen-on-macos-a772795eaf00
How to force a window thats off-screen to show on-screen on MacOS
January 25, 2024 - How to force off-screen windows back on-screen in MacOS Recently, I had a weird problem where I could see a window when using the ‘desktop window viewer’ on the Mac but when I clicked on the …
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Apple Support
support.apple.com › guide › mac-help › view-open-windows-spaces-mission-control-mh35798 › mac
View open windows and spaces in Mission Control on Mac - Apple Support
Show all open windows for the current app: Press Control-Down Arrow. If App Exposé is enabled in Trackpad settings, you can also swipe down with three or four fingers.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/macos › unhide all the applications and all of their windows
r/MacOS on Reddit: Unhide all the applications and all of their windows
April 26, 2022 -

I got to know about a shortcut "Command + Option + H" that hides "all of the windows of all apps", except for the "windows of the frontmost app, which remains active". But what is the shortcut to reverse this change, i.e unhide all the hidden windows. Cycling through all the apps using cmd + tab and individually unhiding is a way but how to unhide all app windows at once...... Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

🌐
Reddit
reddit.com › r/mac › it turns out you can see all windows for an app from the dock
r/mac on Reddit: It turns out you can see all windows for an app from the dock
September 11, 2022 -

I've just discovered by chance that putting your cursor on an icon in your dock and scrolling up (trackpad or mouse) it opens mission control only for that app.

Previously I had to open a random window for that app and swipe four fingers down (trackpad only) or do a keyboard shortcut that I've never really learnt.

Is this behavior a default one? I use a lot of third party software to customize my mac (as I come from Windows and miss a lot of productivity features it has). Can you reproduce it on your mac or is it some software of mine? I like this feature and want to make sure I don't lose it.

Edit:

It seem there is a terminal command you can use to activate this behavior. I recommend activating it ;)

The command: defaults write com.apple.dock scroll-to-open -bool TRUE; killall Dock

The article: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/add-a-useful-scroll-gesture-to-the-os-x-dock-to-view-open-windows/

This gesture shows all open and minimized windows
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MacRumors
forums.macrumors.com › macs › macos › macos
how to rescue windows from off the screen? | MacRumors Forums
September 24, 2007 - I believe if you select 'Zoom' from the Windows menu it will Zoom the window to your current display. Can't test it at the moment as I only have one monitor, but I seem to remember it worked for me a while ago. Click to expand... This worked for me with a stray Sticky, thanks! Also, Forget-Me-Not might be of use to some people. It's designed to stop this sort of thing happening when you switch between single and dual monitor setups. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/22709/forget-me-not
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Medium
medium.com › @mtalukder › missing-a-windows-feature-on-mac-heres-how-to-permanently-show-hidden-files-dadd52d3ce0d
Missing a Windows Feature on Mac? Here’s How to Permanently Show Hidden Files | by Mohammed Mohsin Talukder | Medium
November 23, 2016 - I moved from Windows to Mac 11 years ago, and I still miss one feature: Windows File Explorer’s built-in UI option to show or hide hidden files. On a Mac, there is a keyboard shortcut (Command + Shift + .) to toggle hidden files on or off, ...