macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual

Exposé

Before Mission Control, there was Exposé. It was flexible, it was novel, it was a little confusing. A few years ago, Apple incorporated the main functions of Exposé into Mission Control—but Apple didn’t want to break all those Exposé fans’ hearts. So Exposé is still there, for the benefit of old-timers who don’t like change.

Well, it’s mostly there. There used to be three different Exposé modes. One showed you miniatures of all windows in all programs; one showed you miniatures of all windows in just one program (Figure 6-17, top) and one hid all windows in all programs so you could see the desktop (Figure 6-17, bottom).

These days, only the second and third Exposé functions still exist. (The first one—showing all windows in all programs—is what Mission Control is for.)

You can trigger both of these modes using different combinations of the mouse and keyboard. The following pages cover all of them, but of course you’re not expected to learn all that. Just find the one trigger that seems most convenient, and stick with it.

One-App Exposé

When you trigger Mission Control, you see the thumbnails of all windows in all apps.

But sometimes it’s useful to see only the windows of one app arrayed before you—the app you’re using.

That’s great when you’re web browsing or word processing. This Exposé function makes the program’s windows spread out, and shrink if necessary, so you can click the one you want (Figure 6-17, top).

Here’s how Apple intends for most people to trigger this option: