If youāre ever feeling overwhelmed by an excess of open windows on your Mac, a new tool called Later can help. By clicking a button on the Mac menu bar, you can hide all open windows from your desktop, then bring them back at a later time.
Iāve been using a review copy of Later provided by the developer and have found it useful for clearing out desktop clutter when itās time to focus. It can also be helpful for hiding apps and browser tabs during a Zoom presentation.
To hide your apps, just hit Laterās big blue āSave windows for laterā button, or pressĀ Cmd+Shift+L. You can then restore your session through the menu bar or by hittingĀ Cmd+Shift+R.
Later also has a few other useful options for clearing out Mac window clutter: You can choose to quit all applications instead of hiding them, automatically restore your windows after a certain amount of time, and leave system windows such as Finder untouched. (Unfortunately, thereās no way to exempt non-system apps from being hidden.)
OTHER OPTIONS
With its $20 price tag, Later may not be for everyone, and there is another way to achieve window-clearing clarity if youād rather not buy another app: JustĀ open Mission Control on your Mac, then hit the + button on the right to create a new āSpace.ā
This doesnāt work as well with multiple monitors, since you canāt hide both screensā windows with one click, and you wonāt get Laterās auto-resume and quit-all capabilities. Still, itās good enough for opening a fresh desktop in a pinch.
![](https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto/wp-cms/uploads/2022/03/windowsnewdesktop.jpg)
[Screenshot: Jared Newman]
Windows users also have a couple of different options: PressĀ Win+DĀ or click the bottom-right corner of your screen to minimize and restore all of your apps, or create a new desktop space through Task View (pictured above), which you can open by hittingĀ Win+Tab or clicking the box-like icon next to the Start menu. Hitting the + creates a new space that even spans multiple monitors.
Meanwhile, a Windows app calledĀ CloseAllĀ allows you to quit all of your Windows apps at once. Like Later, it costs $20, though the free trial version has no apparent limits on usage.
This tip comes fromĀ Advisorator, Jaredās weekly tech advice newsletter.Ā Sign upĀ to get tips like this every Tuesday.