Aral Balkan

One of the things I miss in OS X is the ability to use a keyboard shortcuts as often I do on Windows. Although I am learning new keyboard shortcuts every day, OS X still feels like more of a mouse-driven OS than Windows. Case in point: Under Windows you can press Alt + a letter to reach any menu in an application directly. The closest I've found to this in OS X is to enable the Move focus to the menu bar option (Ctrl+F2) which places the focus on the Apple menu. Needless to say, it's more tiring as you have to move manually to the menu you want, which may be on the other side of the screen.

Another feature I miss from Windows is the ability to maximize the current window using a keyboard shortcut. On OS X, you can maximize an application (or, depending on the application, change its size) by using the green plus key on the top-left of the window. Unfortunately, OS X doesn't give you any way to add a keyboard shortcut to this key short of writing an AppleScript. Thankfully, this is exactly what Simon Dorfman has done. Check out his script and instructions for adding a keyboard shortcut to the maximize button under OS X.

[Update] I forgot to mention that the above hack uses QuickSilver to add the keyboard binding. QuickSilver is one of those applications that leave you wondering how you ever managed without them.

Comments

• Maybe you know the site already: http://www.xvsxp.com/ they have quite a handy section on keyboard shortcuts for both operating systems. (OsX has more btw. ;)

  by jg on 2006-08-14 07:53:53

• This site has a long list of OS X shortcuts http://rixstep.com/2/20040510,00.shtml

  by punkcoder on 2006-08-14 11:59:30

• You might also want to check out quicksilver, a lovely little app that you can use to lauch apps or files without going mousing (I use it to maximize apps from the dock too). Really speeds things up. http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

  by PMc on 2006-08-14 12:04:25

• Yeah, what always strikes me as frustrating is OSX's mouse-driven culture, with the inability to do things by keyboard (quicker) like you can do on any windows application. You're forced to install stuff that should have been there by default (the Alt thing, for example) or use extremely convoluted "workarounds" (Ctrl F2 on this example).

  by Zeh on 2006-08-14 14:05:07

• Eh, don't make us start an endless tirade of rants against windows..... ;)

  by LEE on 2006-08-14 14:44:47

• Hi PMc, I forgot to mention in my post that the above hack actually uses QuickSilver to add the keyboard trigger. I'll update the post to mention this! Thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

  by aral on 2006-08-14 14:45:22

• [...] Either you don't have the Flash Player installed or SWFObject wasn't able to detect it. Download the Flash Player. // 0)) { document.getElementById('flashPlayerInfo').innerHTML = "You have Flash player "+ version['major'] +"."+ version['minor'] +"."+ version['rev'] +" installed. Detected by SWFObject."; } // ]]> « A maximize keyboard shortcut for OS X [...]

  by Parallels vs. QuickSilver at Aral Balkan on 2006-08-14 15:29:30

• Man! I can't believe QuickSilver and Parallels can't play nice together... Sorry, Aral, I would have mentioned the incompatibility if I had known, but I'm on a PPC Mac... That seriously makes me reconsider my burning need to get a new Intel Mac. Snap!

  by Dru on 2006-08-14 16:24:35

• Have you looked in the Universal Access preference pane?

  by salo on 2006-08-14 21:42:53

• what is the keyboard shortcut for maximizing a window in Windows? I've been searching for this for a while but can' t find any info on it....i know WINKEY D = desktop and M = minimize, but what about maximize?? thanks!

  by bobby on 2006-12-17 01:09:45

• Hi Bobby, Not running Windows at the moment, but off the top of my head I believe it was Alt-Space and then X. Basically, use the keyboard shortcut to bring up the context menu in the window and then hit the keyboard shortcut for the Maximize option in that context menu.

  by aral on 2006-12-18 22:15:25

• Quicksilver a handy LITTLE app? LMAO

  by Sune on 2007-01-06 12:44:08

• Bobby, In Windows, you basically don´t need a maximize shortcut! The application window will ´maximize´ simply by activating the program. actually, you cannot activate a program without maximizing the windows at the same time. rgds, Poby

  by Poby on 2007-03-07 12:31:45

• Install Witch, and in preferences, specify the shortcut you would like to have for "Zoom frontmost window". I have mine set to ctrl alt Z. That will do the trick. Of course, Witch does a lot more...

  by kris on 2007-05-10 09:55:57

• Thanks, Kris, I'll check Witch out. Although, I have to say, since I've been using OS X for a while now, I no longer miss the maximize shortcut at all.

  by aral on 2007-05-10 10:14:20

• You are very right here in article. Its more of a mouse driven OS. Being a developer, i used keyboard ONLY many times, but with OS X i get simply pissed off. I checked with keyboard shortcuts in help are one of those.. which are not frequently used. Thanks for CTRL-F2 it simplified my life a little bit .

  by Nishant on 2007-07-17 21:52:53

• hello Aran, great to see someone is grappling with this issue. Mac is so beautiful in so many ways, that i just find the lack of Alt F bewildering! And okay the "Start Menu" on windows is really lame compared to Linux, but to see mac going backwards, and preventing people from managing their own 'apple menu' .. agh both linux and windows allow full keyboard access to all menus, and mac users just look at you blankly, "But why would you want to do that?" (uh, because my arm hurts from wielding this mouse so much) the keyboard configurability in linux is just amazing ... you can do completely anything. Don't like Alt space? Change it. anyway, rave on michael

  by michael chalk on 2007-08-31 06:59:56

• Hi Michael, Have you tried QuickSilver? It's been a lifesaver for me -- can't imagine using a Mac without it.

  by Aral on 2007-08-31 07:54:23

• Hi Michael and others! Have you ever tried control F2? Then you can just type few of the first letters of a menu item you're willing to access, type "down" and continue... IMO this is full keyboard access, not the way Windows has it [alt an alphabet underlined] ;) And you know what.. The control F2 can be changed to whatever you want to use. -jyrki

  by Jyrki on 2007-10-15 06:44:43

• Just tried Ctrl-F2 in a couple of apps Firefox, TextMate, Preview, etc. and it didn't do anything.

  by Aral on 2007-10-15 08:41:34

• Cheers for the article, really helpful =)

  by MuffinDCC on 2008-01-01 16:19:55

• I've experienced frustration trying to maximize docked windows as well. So I went on a quest to find a better navigation method and here's the solution I found: Stop minimizing and maximizing. Hide your apps instead using Cmd+H. It's much faster. Then you can access the hidden app by using Cmd+Tab. Furthermore, if you want to cycle through an application's windows you can do this with Cmd+~. Cmd+H Cmd+Tab Cmd+~ Those three shortcuts have greatly increased my productivity. Oh and BTW you CAN also maximize a docked window using Cmd+Tab. Just hold Option before you release (works in 10.5 and later). And a final tip for speedy navigation: AFTER pressing Cmd+Tab, while "Tab" moves L to R, "~" moves R to L. Have fun!

  by QA on 2008-07-08 23:54:00

• If you want QS this is the site to go to today. http://lipidity.com/apple/quicksilver/quicksilver-cleaned/

  by Rick on 2008-05-15 05:37:15

• Check out the "mouse and keyboard"-preference pane of the osx system preferences. You can assign keyboard shortcuts for every menu item in osx, also maximizing windows. Just add a new shortcut for either all or just one special application, enter the name of the menu command name and press the shortcut. Unfortunately firefox3 and fdt/eclipse do not follow apple's design principle :((( but for all other apps it's just fine.

  by kp on 2008-08-12 13:46:42

• The freeware "rightzoom" does this. Just set any shortcut you like. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30591

  by euhmoins on 2009-05-27 21:07:52

• Option + CMD + H hides everything but the active windows BTW. Pretty useful too.

  by Søren Spelling Lund on 2009-05-29 12:07:08

• Love the CMD + H shortcut. Just what I was looking for. Thanks a bunch!

  by Søren Spelling Lund on 2009-05-29 11:08:55

• QA thank you so much for the unminimize shortcut. I been complaining about that forever and nobody ever knew how to unminimize. Thanks for the suggestion on Cmd+H and Cmd +~ somehow I never learned those shortcuts either. Huge help! Cheers

  by Scoots on 2009-05-10 16:08:26

• HI Aral, This does not "Maximize" the window, it just like clicking the green button; and the green button does not make the active window take the whole desktop like on Windows; isn't that what Maximize means. Does anyone have a solution other than using the bottom right corner, to make the active window take up the whole screen? Thank, MP

  by MP on 2009-06-03 17:59:50

• Why install more software?? You can get shortcuts setup in OS X. Look here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=111685

  by satan on 2009-11-02 08:52:52

• MP, the zoom green button (I set the shortcut command + Z) does work for me for most of the applications. The zoom button does take the whole screen if it requires (that's the key if it requires). If you are in Finder but are only looking as items in columns, unless you have 4 columns it does not cover the whole window. I set my default to view as list and added a few additional columns to show (like label and version) so now it takes up my whole window every time I press command + Z. Terminal works good. Safari is a little shady but once I set the size by manually dragging, it keeps it to that unless I change it. Thanks

  by Ajay Goel on 2009-07-10 21:35:09

• Thank you for the tip, and I agree with you, it's definitely not as keyboard friendly as the windows or Linux is. It seems pretty excessive that you need to write a script in order to maximize a window.

  by Sam on 2009-12-15 20:46:46

• I prefer the OS X approach to fast application switching than the Windows equivalent. In OS X one cycles through open applications using ⌘+tab, and through open windows in the active application using ⌘+`. (If I'm switching between Safari and Coda, I don't want to be distracted or inconvenienced by the 20 documents I happen to have open in Photoshop.) Thanks for the link, satan. While I'm a huge fan of Quicksilver it's clearly better to use OS X's shortcuts manager than to employ a script.

  by David Chambers on 2010-02-07 00:31:49

• Try pressing Cmd+Shift+? in an application (that should bring up the "Search" feature in the Help menu. You can then type in a couple of letters from any item in any of the application's menus, and it'll show results (kind of like Spotlight) which you can select from to perform those actions. E.g. type in "sa" and you'll be shown the "Save", "Save As..." etc menu items. Below this it'll show you help topics that may be relevant too (so if you type "bug" but there are no menu items with the word bug in them, it'll show you a help topic about how to "report problems to Apple") This is basically as quick as navigating the menus with Alt+ in Windows, and you only need to know the name of the action/menu item, and not which menu it resides in.

  by frog on 2010-05-24 03:27:38

• nice.... its fabolous....its kinda helpfull 4 us....

  by shahkhalid khattak on 2010-03-29 02:21:19

• CMD+M = minimize to dock. What OS X needs is a keyboard shortcut to "un-minimize".

  by Pushit on 2010-03-15 09:14:46

• Custom scripts for just basic feature, Shame on Apple.

  by Phuong Nguyen on 2010-05-31 03:59:21

• there is an application called rightzoom (with snowleopard support) that does this automagically and is really configurable.

  by AK on 2010-08-09 17:15:27

• I would like to know why when i hit the green button on Snow OS X it does not full maximize it like in windows. i want to be able to go from full maximized to the last position i had it. Is that possible. I thought thats how it worked but i guess i a was wrong. I use Cinch and wonder how i could have ever lived with out it. Like like why is there no universal EQ for sound on Macs mind boggles me although i have not found a solution for this i think that there has to be a way to get this feature.

  by jorge cobos on 2010-10-21 22:36:54

• I know I'm replying to a 4 year old post. But hopefully it'll help you. The green Maximize button is called the 'Zoom' button. To associate a shortcut to it, head to 'Keyboard>>Keyboard Shortcuts' page in Settings. Select Application Shortcuts, click on the + button, enter 'Zoom' in Menu Title and associate any shortcut you want. Problem solved!

  by Sujay on 2010-10-22 14:46:10

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  by u on 2011-07-25 11:22:37

• This is actually possible without QuickSilver and AppleScript. Just add a keyboard shortcut for the "Zoom" menu name in system preferences > keyboard.

  by Torkil Johnsen on 2011-06-30 15:59:27

• Apple doesn't give two craps about making the transition from Windows easier. They could care less. They're making so much money. They have like 2 people programming for OSX and they use them pretty much as slaves. They're over worked and not even that skilled.

  by George on 2011-10-04 23:34:06

• You may try Hyperdock software which is amazing for maximizing and resizing windows. But you are very right, I do really miss the Alt-F, Alt-E pull down shortcut.

  by Jeffri Lingo on 2012-09-10 03:54:20