Show Desktop in OS X

Mon, 26 February 2007

One of the very frustrating things in OS X is that you can not click the button and show Desktop. Well, you can … sort of. You have three options:

  • Press F11, this will engage expose and move all windows to the edge of your screen,
  • click anywhere on your desktop while holding Cmnd-Option on your keyboard - this will hide all programs but Finder, if open, or
  • you can use ShowDesktop, a free application  by Everyday Software that sits in your dock or your menu bar and shows desktop by simply clicking on it.

Stumble it!

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6 Responses to “Show Desktop in OS X”

  1. Derrick said: Mon, 26 February 2007 at 23:18

    You could also set Expose to specific mighty mouse functions, or use active screen corners. Those also work very well.

  2. subcorpus said: Tue, 27 February 2007 at 00:33

    i use active screen corners …
    saves me a lot of keystokes … hehe …
    i use a mouse even when i’m traveling …

  3. Adam said: Tue, 27 February 2007 at 03:09

    The hot corners are genius! I use to show my desktop and use F11 to show expose it works out really well, also you can set some mice so that the click-wheel can act as a button if you click it in and thats also what i use to show expose, try it it’s really cool. But not as cool as a mighty mouse, only if i had money, haha!

  4. Murphy said: Fri, 2 March 2007 at 02:35

    Excellent, I didn’t know about the Command+Option+ Desktop Click !! Very cool.

  5. Brandon Martinez said: Thu, 8 March 2007 at 05:25

    I do what Derrick says, I assign my Mighty Mouse squeeze to normal expose (all windows), alt squeeze to show desktop, command squeeze for dashboard, and I think shift squeeze for expose current app. More functionality with the same mouse button :)

  6. Wolfgang said: Wed, 16 April 2008 at 04:42

    You could also switch to another Space with “Spaces” hoping to find a free desktop… Takes CTRL+left for example.

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