Minimize vs Hide on Mac: Which Should You Use?

Two shortcuts sit a key apart and both make windows disappear — but that's where the similarity ends. Cmd + H hides, Cmd + M minimizes, and they behave differently in the Dock, in Cmd + Tab, and in Mission Control. Once you see the difference, one of them becomes your default and the other becomes rare.

What each one actually does

Hide (Cmd + H) is app-wide and instant. Every window of the frontmost app vanishes — no animation — and focus moves to the next app. The windows aren't gone; they're exactly where you left them, just invisible. Switch back to the app with Cmd + Tab or a click on its Dock icon and everything reappears in place.

Minimize (Cmd + M) is per-window and animated. The front window shrinks into the right end of the Dock (or into its app's icon, depending on a setting) and lives there as a thumbnail until you click it back out. The app stays active; its other windows stay put.

The related combos are worth knowing too: Cmd + Option + H hides every app except the current one — the fastest "clear my screen but keep working" command on the Mac — and Cmd + Option + M minimizes all of the front app's windows at once, as does Option-clicking the yellow button.

Where they differ in daily use

• Cmd + Tab: this is the big one. Switching to a hidden app un-hides it — windows and all. Switching to an app whose windows are all minimized gives you… nothing: the menu bar changes but the windows stay parked in the Dock. The workaround is to hold Option as you release Cmd in the app switcher, which pulls a minimized window back up.
• Mission Control shows neither: minimized and hidden windows are both excluded from the spread. If you rely on Mission Control to find windows, both commands hide things from it equally.
• The Dock: minimized windows take up space as individual thumbnails; hidden apps don't add anything (their icon just stays put, dimmed if you enable that). Ten minimized windows means a crowded Dock; ten hidden apps means a clean one.
• Speed: hiding is instant. Minimizing plays the Genie animation, window by window. Hide ten windows and it's done before Genie would have finished one.

Which to use

Default to hide. It's faster, it handles the whole app in one stroke, it keeps the Dock clean, and Cmd + Tab reverses it with no tricks. Hiding is the Mac's version of "get this out of my face but keep it ready."

Minimize when you want a specific window parked. A reference document you'll need in an hour, one chat window out of five — minimizing keeps that window's thumbnail visible in the Dock as a reminder, which hiding can't do. Think of the Dock's minimized section as a small "later" shelf.

Settings that change the equation

Three switches in System Settings → Desktop & Dock tune this behavior:

• Minimize windows using — switch Genie to Scale for a quicker, plainer animation.
• Minimize windows into application icon — thumbnails stop piling up next to the Trash and tuck into the app's own icon instead. Cleaner Dock, but the visual reminder disappears.
• Double-click a window's title bar to — if this is set to Minimize, you may be minimizing by accident; set it to Zoom or Do Nothing.

All three work identically on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

The third option: close

If you won't need the window again today, closing beats both — and Cmd + Option + W closes every window of the app at once. See how to close all windows of an app for the details.