How to Use App Exposé on Mac (See One App's Windows)

Mission Control shows every window on your Mac; App Exposé shows every window of one app — which is usually the question you're actually asking. Press Ctrl-Down and the front app spreads out its windows, minimized ones included, ready to click. Here's how to trigger it, navigate it, and make it a habit.

What App Exposé shows

Trigger App Exposé and the frontmost app's windows tile across the screen as live previews, each labelled. Along the bottom you'll find the windows that aren't currently on screen — minimized windows, and in document apps like Pages or Preview, a row of recent documents you can reopen with a click. Everything else on your Mac dims out of view. It works the same on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia.

That bottom row is the killer feature: it's the only window-switching view on the Mac that surfaces minimized windows and recent files in one place. If you've ever quit an app just to "find that document again," App Exposé was the two-keystroke answer the whole time.

Three ways to trigger it

• Ctrl + Down — the default keyboard shortcut. macOS calls it Application windows; you can confirm or change the key in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Mission Control.
• Trackpad swipe — off by default; enable it:
  1. Open System Settings → Trackpad.
  2. Click More Gestures.
  3. Set App Exposé to Swipe Down with Three Fingers (or four, matching your Mission Control swipe).
• Force-click a Dock icon — on a Force Touch trackpad, a deep click on any running app's Dock icon opens that app's Exposé, even if it isn't frontmost.

Navigating once you're in

• Click any window to bring it forward, or move the highlight with the arrow keys and press Return.
• Press Tab to flip to the next app's Exposé — a genuinely fast way to audit everything open, one app at a time, without ever leaving the view.
• Press Ctrl + Down again or Esc to leave without switching.

Bonus: scroll a Dock icon to trigger it

A hidden Dock preference lets you scroll up on any app's Dock icon to open its App Exposé — no keyboard, no force-click:

# scroll up on a Dock icon = App Exposé for that app
defaults write com.apple.dock scroll-to-open -bool true
killall Dock

# undo
defaults delete com.apple.dock scroll-to-open
killall Dock

Once it's on, hover any Dock icon and flick upward with two fingers. For apps buried three deep in windows, it's the shortest path there is.

Exposé, Mission Control, or Cmd-`?

Three tools, one decision: how many windows are you choosing between?

• Two or three windows of one app: Cmd + ` cycles them with no visual interruption — fastest when you already know what's next.
• Many windows of one app: App Exposé. You see everything, minimized windows included, and pick visually.
• Windows across many apps: Mission Control (Ctrl + Up) — the whole desktop at altitude, Spaces along the top.

A setup tip: match your gesture finger-counts. If Mission Control is a three-finger swipe up, set App Exposé to the three-finger swipe down — up for everything, down for this app — and the pair becomes a single reflex. Four-finger swipers should keep both at four.

App Exposé also earns a place in drag-and-drop: drag a file onto an app's Dock icon and hold it there a moment, and the app's windows spread out so you can drop into the right one — spring-loading and Exposé working together. For a mouse-free day, that plus Ctrl + Down covers nearly every "where did that window go" moment an app can produce.

When you want all apps at once

App Exposé's big sibling is Mission Control (Ctrl + Up), which spreads out every window from every app and your Spaces along the top. If Mission Control feels sluggish, speed it up: make Mission Control faster.