Show Desktop in OS X

Feb 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.

Derrick

February 26th, 2007 at 11:18 PM

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

February 27th, 2007 at 12:33 AM

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

February 27th, 2007 at 3:09 AM

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!
Murphy

March 2nd, 2007 at 2:35 AM

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

March 8th, 2007 at 5:25 AM

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 :)
Wolfgang

April 16th, 2008 at 4:42 AM

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