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This happens from time to time: the "hide" option is just grayed out and the usual shortcut doesn't work. I'm not doing anything special or stuck in a modal window—it just isn't available.

hiding Chrome

4 Answers 4

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This is OS X default behavior in every app if you have hidden all other apps before with "Hide Others" or ++H. In such a case it's not possible to hide the front most app, that's why both options are greyed out/inactive.

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    Wow, that is nuts. User-unfriendly. "You told me to do X before, and now I see you're telling me to do Y. Faced with contradicting [ed. not really] instructions, I'll just ignore this last thing you told me to do."
    – Dogweather
    Jun 29, 2016 at 19:10
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    "it's not possible to hide the front most app". This is a weird assumption Mac OS makes. I believe some people want to access the desktop (without some gesture), or have a "clean" state of windows. The shortcut I found is to switch to the Finder and hit ⌥+⌘+H.
    – bbxdesign
    Jun 16, 2017 at 12:30
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Here's a workaround:

If you hold the -key and click the desktop, your app will hide.

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The same thing happened to me. I figured out that Google Chrome was in full screen mode on another (secondary) display. Consequently, OS X could not hide it.

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Go to the Chrome to and select "Show All", the option will reappear.

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  • Sure, "We're looking for long answers...", but this is the only answer describing how to fix the situation.
    – Dogweather
    Jun 29, 2016 at 19:12
  • This happened to me with Chrome plus other Chrome-based apps such as WhatsApp web
    – gdecaso
    May 23, 2019 at 0:06

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