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Exposé in Snow Leopard showed minimized windows — if any — in a dedicated area at the bottom. This was extremely helpful and efficient, especially combined with the "Minimize windows in application icon" setting of the Dock.

Mission Control is apparently done with this behavior, so monitoring and fetching minimized windows is now a pain.

Is there a way to show minimized windows anywhere in Mission Control?

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  • I miss this very much as well. I hope Apple changes this or gives us the option at least. Or maybe someone can find or make a tweak :)
    – Randy6T9
    Aug 1, 2011 at 4:29
  • I don't miss SL expose at all, specially because of that... But I agree Lion is missing something for better management of minimized windows. At least on Leopard they would all stick in one place of the dock.
    – cregox
    Dec 17, 2011 at 15:22

4 Answers 4

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If you exposé (three finger swipe down or whatever shortcut you've set up) you can then switch through all of the applications by pressing tab.

Pressing tab on its own will go through each application showing all windows (minimised or not), pressing cmd and tab will show you the swap icon bar (in middle of screen) at the same time as going through the applications. The arrow keys followed by enter will help you select what window you want.

It's certainly not as elegant as SL used to be, but it's the only thing I've found that kinda/sorta/maybe comes close.

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  • Command + Mission Control Key (F3 on my macbook) will also bring exposé. And then TAB as he said. +1 for the only thing that can be done natively for all my research went so far.
    – cregox
    Dec 17, 2011 at 15:19
  • This is not working for me, when switching to Misson Control (no matter how), the TAB key seems to be inoperative. Maybe some setting that I've changed?
    – Juan A. Navarro
    Feb 7, 2012 at 15:20
  • As of 10.11, Cmd+Tab while in app-specific Mission Control will just exit Mission Control and enter the normal Cmd+Tab switcher. In all-apps Mission Control, Cmd+Tab does nothing.
    – echristopherson
    Apr 29, 2016 at 14:04
  • This is still working in Catalina. You have to press TAB in Expose, not Mission Control.
    – DataGreed
    Feb 3, 2021 at 2:47
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The most straightforward way is to use Exposé on the application with minimized windows to show them.

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  • 3
    A two-finger double tap on an app icon in the dock will trigger App Exposé for that app.
    – David Barry
    Jul 21, 2011 at 21:31
  • 1
    Not a real solution. If you have multiple apps with multiple minimized windows open, it still takes significantly more time to get to the window you want.
    – Fake Name
    Jul 22, 2011 at 21:45
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I don't think it's turned on by default, but you can turn on App Exposé (which shows minimized windows) as a trackpad gesture using three or four finger swipes downward. It's in Trackpad>More Gestures. If that's not quite what you're looking for, you might also try Hyperdock, which replicates Windows 7's aero peek functionality on OS X; it includes minimized windows.

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  • I too just recently started using the trial demo of HyperDock to compensate for this Lion change. I like it, but I'm still undecided if it really fills the hole perfectly.
    – Randy6T9
    Aug 1, 2011 at 4:32
  • You can also set App expose to a keyboard shortcut, custom mouse button, or hot corner. It shows minimized windows.
    – Paul Eccles
    Aug 4, 2011 at 6:57
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Press Command-Tab which will show applications including minimized ones. Highlight the one you are looking for, release Tab and while still holding Command press on Opt/Alt before letting all keys go. This will bring up the minimized application.

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  • 1
    good hint, but this wont work for application with more than 1 minimized windows, specially if one window is already up.
    – cregox
    Dec 17, 2011 at 15:21

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