How to Minimize Windows Into the App Icon on Mac

By default, every window you minimize becomes its own thumbnail on the right side of the Dock. Minimize a dozen windows and the Dock doubles in length, every icon shrinks, and the thumbnails become indistinguishable slivers. One toggle fixes it: minimized windows tuck into their app's icon instead, and the Dock never grows.

Turn it on in System Settings

1. Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
2. Turn on Minimize windows into application icon.

That's it — the change is immediate. Press Cmd+M on any window and it now shrinks into the app's own Dock icon rather than spawning a thumbnail next to the Trash. The toggle is in the same place on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia.

Or flip it in Terminal

# minimize windows into the app icon
defaults write com.apple.dock minimize-to-application -bool true
killall Dock

# undo: back to separate Dock thumbnails
defaults write com.apple.dock minimize-to-application -bool false
killall Dock

Both routes set the same preference, so you can turn it on in Terminal and off in System Settings, or vice versa. To check the current state from a script, run defaults read com.apple.dock minimize-to-application — 1 means on, 0 or a “does not exist” error means the default thumbnail behavior.

How to get minimized windows back

With no thumbnails to click, you need one of these instead:

• Right-click the app's Dock icon. The menu lists all of the app's windows; minimized ones are marked with a small diamond. Click one to restore it.
• Click and hold the Dock icon to open App Exposé, which lays out every window — minimized ones appear in a row along the bottom.
• Use the app's Window menu in the menu bar, which also lists minimized windows.
• The Cmd+Tab trick: hold Cmd, tab to the app, then press and hold Option as you release Cmd. macOS restores a minimized window instead of just switching apps.

Windows you minimized before flipping the toggle stay where they are: the setting only affects where future minimizes go, so existing thumbnails keep their spot on the right side of the Dock until you restore them.

The tradeoff

There's a real space payoff. The Dock shares one strip between apps, folders, and minimized thumbnails — when thumbnails pile up, macOS shrinks every icon to make room, so a busy afternoon can leave your whole Dock at half size. With minimize-into-icon on, the Dock's length is fixed by what you've pinned, nothing more. On a 13-inch MacBook screen this is one of the highest-value tweaks there is. Thumbnails also show a live miniature of the window's contents, which is worth remembering when you're screen-sharing: a minimized document is still faintly readable in the Dock, while a window tucked into its app icon is invisible.

What you lose is the visual reminder. A thumbnail in the Dock nags you that a window exists; a window hidden inside an app icon is easy to forget entirely, sometimes for days. If you treat minimized windows as a to-do list, keep the default. If you minimize things to get them out of the way — which is most people — the compact Dock wins, and App Exposé covers the rare hunt. Heavy keyboard users often go a step further and stop minimizing altogether: Cmd+H hides the whole app instantly, with no animation and no Dock clutter, and clicking the app's icon brings everything straight back.

Keep the Dock lean

This pairs well with hiding the running-app indicator dots for an even cleaner strip — see how to hide the dots under open apps. Together the two tweaks turn the Dock back into what it was meant to be: a fixed row of launchers, not a scrapbook of everything you've set aside.