"Show Desktop" initiates on its own

Periodically, the show desktop function engages without any key presses or mouse clicks. The windows just fly off the screen while I'm doing nothing but looking at the screen and I have to push the mission control key to get them to return. I do not have any hot corners or key mapping for the show desktop function.


I currently have an M1 iMac, but this happened when I had a 21.5" iMac as well. So I'm obviously using a different keyboard and mouse. That would eliminate any issues with a stuck key or anything relating to a mouse.


How can I fix this?

iMac 24″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 27, 2022 12:13 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 28, 2022 12:25 PM

You have a lot of third party software! If this were happening to me, I would completely uninstall CleanMyMac, Kaspersky, and Malwarebytes and then test things out. If the problem persists, I would look at the Etrecheck categories "Launch Daemons" "Launch Agents", "User Launch Agents" and start uninstalling that stuff until the problem goes away. For example, you have some Wacom tablet stuff there. Perhaps that is causing the problem. There are lots of other possibilities.


The advice you received concerning testing things out in "Safe Mode" is good because it turns off much of the third party stuff; if the problem goes away you know it was third party software. The downside is that your problem sounds intermittent, and it is tough to get much work/play done if you are in safe mode all the time.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 28, 2022 12:25 PM in response to wdempster

You have a lot of third party software! If this were happening to me, I would completely uninstall CleanMyMac, Kaspersky, and Malwarebytes and then test things out. If the problem persists, I would look at the Etrecheck categories "Launch Daemons" "Launch Agents", "User Launch Agents" and start uninstalling that stuff until the problem goes away. For example, you have some Wacom tablet stuff there. Perhaps that is causing the problem. There are lots of other possibilities.


The advice you received concerning testing things out in "Safe Mode" is good because it turns off much of the third party stuff; if the problem goes away you know it was third party software. The downside is that your problem sounds intermittent, and it is tough to get much work/play done if you are in safe mode all the time.

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"Show Desktop" initiates on its own

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