How to Switch Between Windows of the Same App on Mac

Cmd-Tab switches apps, not windows — Tab to Safari with five windows open and macOS just shows you whichever was in front last. The shortcut you're missing is Cmd-backtick, and it has two useful backups: App Exposé and the Window menu. Here's the full toolkit, on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia alike.

Cmd-` cycles the front app's windows

Press Cmd + ` (the backtick key, above Tab on US keyboards) and the frontmost app brings its next window forward. Keep pressing to cycle through all of them; add Shift to cycle in reverse. Combined with Cmd-Tab you can reach any window on your Mac from the keyboard: Cmd-Tab to the app, then Cmd-` until the right window lands in front. Once both are muscle memory, the mouse stops being part of window switching at all.

Two caveats worth knowing:

• Minimized windows are skipped. Cmd-` only cycles windows that are actually on screen. Windows minimized to the Dock never come up in the rotation — restore them from the Dock or the Window menu first.
• The key varies by keyboard layout. On many international layouts the shortcut sits on a different key. macOS calls it Move focus to next window — check or change the binding in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Keyboard.

App Exposé shows every window at once

When cycling one window at a time feels slow — an app with eight windows, say — press Ctrl + Down. App Exposé spreads out every window of the front app so you can click the one you want. Minimized windows appear along the bottom, so unlike Cmd-` this view genuinely shows everything.

Prefer the trackpad? Enable the gesture:

1. Open System Settings → Trackpad.
2. Click the More Gestures tab.
3. Set App Exposé to Swipe Down with Three Fingers (or four).

Once inside App Exposé, pressing Tab flips to the next app's windows — a quick way to survey everything you have open, app by app.

The Window menu never lies

Every document window the front app has open is listed at the bottom of its Window menu in the menu bar. A checkmark marks the active window, and a diamond marks a minimized one — choosing a diamond entry restores it from the Dock. When you've genuinely lost a window (wrong desktop, minimized weeks ago, hidden behind everything), the Window menu is the reliable path back. Right-clicking the app's Dock icon shows a similar window list.

Which one to reach for

• Two or three windows: Cmd + ` — instant, no visual interruption.
• Many windows, you need to see them: Ctrl + Down for App Exposé.
• A window has gone missing: the Window menu, which also rescues minimized windows.

Bonus: make Mission Control group by app

If you regularly end up in Mission Control hunting one app's windows among forty thumbnails, bring this post's logic there too. In System Settings → Desktop & Dock, under the Mission Control section, turn on Group windows by application — thumbnails now cluster around their app's icon instead of scattering by screen position. Five Safari windows become one labelled group, and the overview reads like a table of contents rather than a spill. Combined with App Exposé for the single-app case, you get the same organizing idea at two zoom levels.

One last limitation worth knowing: Cmd + ` only cycles windows on the current desktop. If Safari has two windows here and one on another Space, the cycle covers the local two. The Window menu and Mission Control both reach across Spaces when you need the stray — another reason the menu is the tool of last resort that always works.

Related habit: stop losing windows in the first place

If your problem is one giant pile of windows across many apps, Mission Control groups and desktop Spaces help more than any shortcut — start with using multiple desktops on your Mac.