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Managing Mac windows without touching the mouse

Switch, move, resize and arrange windows on a Mac from the keyboard alone. The built in shortcuts, the gaps, and a full keyboard layer for windows.

Guide · Updated 13 October 2026

Reaching for the trackpad to move a window breaks your flow, especially when your hands are already on the keys.

What the Mac covers

  • Switch apps: ⌘ Tab. Switch windows of an app: ⌘ ` ``.
  • Hide: ⌘ H. Minimise: ⌘ M. Close: ⌘ W.
  • Tile halves and fill (macOS 15): fn ⌃ and an arrow, fn ⌃ F.
  • Full Keyboard Access in Accessibility settings lets you reach any control with Tab.

The gaps

No way to move focus to the window on the left, reorder windows, resize in small steps, or send a window to another display.

A full window layer

ClutterFreeMac fills those gaps with one modifier pair, ⌃ ⌥: arrows move focus, ⇧ and arrows move the window, R and F change width, numbers jump to a column, N sends to the next display. Turn on Pointer follows focus in Settings, Navigation and the mouse pointer jumps to the window you move to, so you never have to look for it.

The full list is in the shortcuts section.

Questions

Can I move focus to the window on the left with a shortcut on Mac?

Not built in. ClutterFreeMac does it with `⌃` `⌥` `←`.