What the Green Button Really Does on Mac (All Options)

Most people know exactly one thing about the green traffic light: click it and the window goes full screen. But it responds differently to an Option-click, a hover, a click-and-hold, and an Option-hover — and what's in that hover menu changed a lot in Sequoia. Here's the complete map.

Click: full screen

A plain click takes the window full screen — its own Space, menu bar and Dock hidden, everything else out of sight. That's often more than people want; if you were hoping for "make it big", see the next section. Leave full screen by hovering at the top of the screen and clicking the green button again, or with Ctrl + Cmd + F.

Option-click: zoom (the old-school maximize)

Hold Option and the green button's icon changes from arrows to a plus. Clicking now performs Zoom: the window grows to fit its content — often the full screen, sometimes less, because zoom sizes to what the app considers useful. Crucially, you stay in your Space with the menu bar and Dock visible. Option-click again to return to the previous size. The same command lives at Window → Zoom, and double-clicking the title bar does it too if System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Double-click a window's title bar to is set to Zoom.

Hover (or click-and-hold): the window menu

Rest the pointer on the green button for a moment — or click and hold — and a menu drops down. What's in it depends on your macOS version:

• Ventura and Sonoma: Enter Full Screen, Tile Window to Left of Screen, Tile Window to Right of Screen. The tile options create a full-screen Split View — you'll be asked to pick a second app for the other half.
• Sequoia (macOS 15): a much richer panel — Fill, Center, halves and quarters, multi-window Arrangements, plus Full Screen. These use the new tiling engine, so windows stay in your current Space. Hold Option while the menu is open to see alternate layout choices.

Option-hover on Ventura/Sonoma swaps the menu to Move Window to Left Side of Screen and Move Window to Right Side of Screen — half-screen snaps without Split View. It's the closest those versions get to real tiling, and almost nobody finds it.

Cheat sheet

• Click — full screen (new Space).
• Option-click — zoom to fit content, stay in place.
• Hover / hold — tiling menu (Split View on 13–14, true tiling on 15).
• Option-hover — move-to-half options (13–14) or alternate layouts (15).
• Double-click the title bar — zoom or minimize, per your Desktop & Dock setting.

Every one of these is reversible: zoom toggles back, tiled windows restore with fn + Ctrl + R on Sequoia, and full screen exits the way it entered.

Leaving Split View (the tile options' fine print)

Choose Tile Window to Left of Screen on Ventura or Sonoma and you're not just moving a window — you're entering a full-screen Split View Space, and macOS immediately asks you to pick a second app for the other half. Getting out confuses everyone exactly once: hover at the top of the screen until the menu bar appears, then click the green button on either window. That window leaves; its partner expands to ordinary full screen on its own Space, where a second green-button click frees it too. Alternatively, open Mission Control and drag the paired thumbnail apart.

One last honest note: the traffic lights can't be remapped — no setting swaps what click and Option-click do, and third-party tools don't get to redefine them. The double-click-title-bar behavior is the only official knob. What you can do is bypass the buttons entirely: on Sequoia every hover-menu option has a Window-menu entry or keyboard shortcut, which beats pixel-hunting a seven-point circle anyway.

The green button's biggest upgrade

On Sequoia, everything in the hover menu also has a keyboard route — fn + Ctrl plus an arrow tiles instantly. The full list is in window tiling keyboard shortcuts.