In Mac OS, what is the keyboard shortcut to switch between windows of the same application?

Question

I often use the Cmd+Tab shortcut to switch between different applications (for example: Xcode and Google Chrome), but is there a shortcut to switch between different windows of the same application (for example, from one window in Google Chrome, to another)?

Solution 1

The default shortcut is Cmd` (that's a backtick).

You can always change that shortcut if the given one does not work out for you. Go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts.

Here, assign a custom combination to

• Keyboard » Move focus to next window (under OS X 10.9 and above)

  

• Keyboard » Move focus to the next window in application (until OS X 10.8)

  

This will allow you to toggle between the open windows of any application.

Note

Cmd` works only if all windows are on the same workspace (comment @thias)

Solution 2

command backtick

⌘ + `

Solution 3

This is what I found on my default US english keyboard setting.

1. Toggle between Different Apps -> Command + Tab

2. Toggle between Same App in Same Workspace -> Command + `

3. Toggle between Same App across different Workspace:

   1. View same App windows across All Workspaces -> Control + Down Arrow
   2. Then select with arrow keys or click the app window you want.

Solution 4

I'm on Mavericks and I was looking for a keyboard shortcut to quickly switch between tabs in Chrome. Cmd +` didn't work for me, although I made sure it was correctly setup in System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts. What I found is that Ctrl + Tab works! So for me it's Cmd + Tab to switch between applications, and Ctrl + Tab to switch between the same application's windows, try this if other suggested solutions don't work.

Solution 5

I believe command + option + ` change the tab between one app windows

View more solutions

Comments

[HikeMike]

You don't have "instances of the same application". You have windows.

[Tetsujin]

There is a duplicate of this QA on Ask Different, which also includes other keyboard language layouts - for info apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193937/…

[The Anh Nguyen]

@wip: In Japanese layout keyboard, default is "Command + F1"

[slhck]

@koiyu Nice to know that! Yeah, with the different layouts around, it's always best to look what'd the default setting.

[brevno]

"Move focus to next window in application" was just renamed to "Move focus to next window" in Lion. ⌘F6? What locale or keyboard layout do you use?

[Admin]

Hooooooorayyyy thank you! I couldn't do this in Mountain Lion. It turns out I thought it didn't work, because I had the same key bound to the two window switch shortcuts, and even though the first one was disabled (un-checked), it prevented the other one from working.

[slhck]

@BHSPitMonkey Yes, that one cannot be changed through System Preferences, as it's a system-wide default. Might be possible to change it with tools such as KeyRemap4MacBook?

[BHSPitMonkey]

I wish I understand what Apple was thinking there. The same justification used for making all the other shortcuts configurable could be used to toward making that one configurable as well.

[thias]

is there anything that works between different workspaces (cmd+backtick works only if all windows are on the same workspace)

[Marius]

Thanks this helped me find it again... for some reason mine was disabled.

[Andreas Åkre Solberg]

I don't think your answer works for the latest versions of Mac OS X. I'm using 10.9.3 myself with norwegian keyboard layout. I'm not able to add new shortcuts under Keyboard. I can under App shortcuts, however that does not work with the given text «Move focus to the next window in application».

[slhck]

@AndreasÅkreSolberg It's there. You can't add any, but it's named a little differently. See my updated screenshot from 10.9.

[arka mandal]

I'm on Yosemite and Ctrl + tab was only one working for me, thank you for that. But it doesn't seem to work for terminal instances.... Still trying to find out what to do there.

[Konrad]

This shortcut does not appear to be working in the MS Office 2016, is there a way to fix it?

[slhck]

@Konrad Works for me in Office 2016. Is there any other shortcut that Office is overriding this with?

[Konrad]

@slhck Doesn't appear to be.

[Peter]

Yes. This should be on top. This concept of windows vs apps vs workspaces is confusing.

[Pratik Powar]

Yes, on a US keyboard. On my non-US-keyboard it is not so obvious, since backtick is located on a combined 'accent' key. So to get a backtick I need to press Shift-accent. So switching to the next window is Cmd-Shift-Accent. Now, how do I switch to the previous window? Cmd-Shift-Shift-Accent?

[Dan Dascalescu]

Is there a way to treat all windows as independent application, so Cmd+Tab switches among all windows, without having to think whether to press Cmd+Tab or Cmd+`?

[winklerrr]

@VidarRamdal Even if you had an US keyboard, it wouldn't be possible to move to the previous window, because (as you can see in the settings by yourself) there is no shortcut for "move to previous window".

[joseluisbz]

Help me please: the second key What is (Right Side of P letter, Right Side of 0 "Zero")?

[Ben Racicot]

@DanDascalescu exactly! Apparently you have to cmd' + tab let off the keys and then cmd' + ``` to cycle through each instance of your choice. This is crazy.

[damd]

If you're using a keyboard layout where ` is a problem, I can highly recommend mapping your Caps Lock key to Ctrl (⌃) and then binding Cmd+Ctrl+Tab (⌘⌃⇥) for this purpose :)

[OIS]

For #3, after cntrl + down you can hit tab to toggle applications, then use arrow keys to select the window you want.

[Vadorequest]

Doesn't work when the windows are in fullscreen mode (different workspaces?) wish there was a trick for this

[slhck]

@Vadorequest In that case you can only navigate between different workspaces using Ctrl plus arrow keys.

[Aryaman]

Can update 4 years later; I think newer MacOS' use control + tab now. Seems more intuitive.

[Scott - Слава Україні]

The answer “command + backtick” has been given many times already.  Does it work better when you add the “option” key?

[blueberry_chopsticks]

@OIS that is really cool. Thank you for sharing. I upvoted this answer instead of the selected answer because it covers shifting between same app in different workspaces. Although it does take 1 + N key combos, it's still better than not being able to switch. I wonder if we could get this to just one key combo to go to previous instance of same app...

[blueberry_chopsticks]

@thias See the answer below to toggle between same app in different workspaces: superuser.com/a/764763/483389 CTRL+Down and then tab to toggle. As I mention in the comment there, I wish it was just one key combo, but better than resorting to using the mouse.

[Flov]

Great answer! The German Mac os apparantly also doesn't have the backtick mapped by default so I had to remap it as well.

[daco]

In a german keyboard on macOs Mojave cmd + > (left of "y") works

[MasterMind]

This is exactly what works for me on macOs mojave. “command + backtick” only switches between two windows. with option, it goes throw all windows of the same application

[VVK]

NOTE: It doesn't work for windows running in full screen

[quotesBro]

If you want to toggle between same of different apps, including minimized and hidden windows, Contexts is the right tool for that.

[RCross]

Should clarify that option 3 is for non-full screen apps in different workspaces. There's no way to cycle through full screen instances of the same app.

[RCross]

Not by default it doesn't. Ctrl + Tab performs whatever app-specific action is assigned, e.g. in Chrome it switches tabs, in Visual Studio Code it launches the action prompt, etc.

[JohannSchwarz]

@daco, that did not work for me. Despite being set to that shortcut, nothing happend. I had to use another shortcut to make it work (^ + cmd).

[Alex Pritchard]

Weird that I had to come this far down to find the answer I actually wanted. If I'm in a program with two fullscreen instances and I want to switch between them, this is the only thing that does exactly what I want.

[Mike Williamson]

Does anyone know why @thias is correct? Why do all of the windows need to be in the same workspace? Is there any way to fix that problem?

[Artur Müller Romanov]

hm, this is not the case for me. this shortcut doesn't work

[Admin]

I believe this has changed for macOS 12.