How to Hide Inactive Windows on Your Mac

How to Hide Inactive Windows on Your Mac

More often than not you open multiple windows on your Mac in order to work with multiple apps at the same time. The idea here is nothing new; you simply wish to get a lot of things done in the shortest time possible. While that is not a bad idea, sometimes you leave a number of windows open on your system that distract you from working with the actual window which you really wish to work with at that particular point of time.

At such times, what you can do is either close the other apps and re-open them when you need them, or you can just minimize them and maximize when you want. That is also a task in itself as you need to re-think what windows to close and what to keep open.

There is now a way for Mac users to automatically hide inactive windows on their machines. It senses what windows are inactive and hides them for you to focus on the actual window that you are currently working with.
Hiding Inactive Windows on a Mac

In order to do this task, you are going to use an app called Hocus Focus.

1. Download the Hocus Focus app (free) from its official website on your Mac. When it is downloaded, double-click on its archive, and it will extract. Then, double-click on the app file, and you will see the following prompt where you need to click “Open.”

http://i.imgur.com/M4fa3zb.png

2. There is no installation wizard that you need to go through in order to install the app. As soon as you double-click the app file, it will go into the menu bar on your Mac from where you can access it.

Click on the app icon in the menu bar, hover over the apps listed there, and you should be able to see when they will be considered as inactive windows and will be hidden.

http://i.imgur.com/6ket88a.png

3. You can also set a custom hide time when the windows will be considered as inactive and will be hidden. You can do this by clicking on the arrow icon next to the app name. You should see two boxes to fill in the time information. When you are done setting the time, simply click on “Save.”

http://i.imgur.com/6ket88a.png

4. If you wish to disable hiding for some time on your machine, you can click the app icon followed by the settings icon, then “Disable Hiding,” and it will disable the app functionality. It will remain disabled until you come back to the app and uncheck the option.

http://i.imgur.com/yX2E5Od.png

Conclusion

Distractions can be anything from a simple app to multiple windows. The above guide should help you hide the latter distraction for you to work on what matters most.