Window Controls Don't Appear in Full Screen

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Level 1

10 points

Window Controls Don't Appear in Full Screen

To be more specific, Minimize, Close, and Full Screen buttons disappear while in Full Screen.

To clarify, the buttons do not appear, even when I move my mouse to the top left corner of the screen as they should (I have to use a keyboard command to exit fullscreen). Even the "Menu Bar" that should appear at the top of the screen ceases to appear when this problem occurs.

Restarting the computer fixes it, but the problem comes back frequently and I do not want to have to frequently restart my Mac to do something simple like manage window sizes.

Has anyone encountered this issue and found a fix?

Failing that, can the menu bar up top be made permanently visible even in "Full Screen Mode"?

Or alternatively, can the default when clicking the green button be changed to "Zoom" instead of "Full Screen" (usually only accessible by holding "alt" while hovering over the green button)?

Mac mini, macOS 11.2

Posted on Mar 3, 2021 1:06 PM

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Answer 1

dialabrain

Level 10

137,567 points

Mar 3, 2021 1:10 PM in response to shudsonrscw

I've never had the menu bar not appear when mousing to the top of the screen. However, most apps will "Maximize" when you double click on their Title Bar. Try just mousing up to the top of the screen rather than the top left corner.

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

137,567 points

Mar 3, 2021 1:39 PM in response to shudsonrscw

It looks like you are in Full Screen already. Two things, one, as I mentioned, try mousing up the the top of the screen, not the top left corner. The second thing is, instead of switching to Full Screen, if you double-click on an apps Title Bar it should maximize the window.

Check System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar and make sure "Double-click a window's title bar" to "zoom" is enabled.

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Answer 3

shudsonrscw Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 3, 2021 3:52 PM in response to dialabrain

Responding to all above to keep thread short (thank you everyone for giving your thoughts)

When the bug occurred, the top menu bar would not drop down at all in full screen, referring to the captured video by Old Toad
I have enabled the "double click" feature - It seems like a good feature to have. I will attempt this if it happens again (please note though, that it didn't exit Full Screen mode).
Yeah, I am using Chrome Browser. Not sure if this was what caused the OS to bug in the first place, but once the bug occurred, other stock OS apps such as Safari and Photos were affected. Could be a Chrome bug perhaps? It should be noted that it originally started when I was using the "Tile Window" feature with Full Screen (I had 2 chrome windows, one on each side of the screen).

If I am the only one who encountered this issue, I'd probably agree with the Chrome assessment. Unfortunately, switching off of Chrome isn't much of an option for me due to Sync with my work PC (it's a Windows).

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Answer 4

shudsonrscw Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 3, 2021 1:31 PM in response to dialabrain

Hope this screenshot helps - this is what it looks like when the problem occurs. Moving the mouse to the "Top Left" corner will not populate the window controls.

Where exactly on the screen are you "double clicking"? The gray menu bar doesn't appear when this issue occurs either.

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