The Command Tilde won't work on my MacBook Pro

FIXED my issue by DISABLING Stage Manager. Verify your "Desktop & Dock" > "Stage Manager" settings.

NOTE: I accidentially had "Desktop & Dock" > "Mission Control" > “Displays have separate spaces” setting DISABLED thereby graying out the Stage Manager switch.

Casual Mac user, but fierce keyboard shortcut loyalist, so figuring all this stuff out on the fly.

My Cmd-Tilde would stop working intermittently and it was driving me crazy.

I figured out what I was doing - guessing this is an amateur issue but perhaps will help some on this chain.

Bottom line for me: you can't Cmd-Tilde between two windows in same app if one of them is maximized (full screen). If you minimize it, Cmd-Tilde will start working again.

A bit more detail:

I would sometimes maximize (enter full screen) in one of my windows - mostly because my toolbar wouldn't always come up so I'd just fiddle with the screen Max/Min to find it. I'm not sure I would even know if it was maximized because the visual difference between full screen and not full screen isn't always very apparent when your window covers the whole screen anyway.

When you do this (maximize one of your two open screens in the same app), Cmd-Tilde no longer works between the two screens.

It actually creates a new Desktop (which you can see if you do Ctrl-Up Arrow to open Mission Control). At the top you can see you have all your apps/windows on your desktop, then a second desktop with your maximized window.

If you hover over that second desktop you can click on the two inwardly facing arrows and it puts it back in your desktop for you. Or just get back to that window and exit full screen.

Hope this helps some of you.

I think I've found the real problem, and why it's intermittent, i.e. it works sometimes and sometimes not.

In my case, the "Settings > Keyboard > Text Input > Edit > Automatically switch to document's input source" was making the key to be the character only sometimes, based on some heuristics of what "document" I was looking at.

After turning this off, switching windows works everywhere for me.

I had the issue after upgrading to Sonoma. I solved it by going into Setting->Keyboard Shortcuts->Keyboard. There I replaced the "Move focus to next window" with another shortcut - this worked. Then I changed it back to "tilde" and it worked again. hope this helps

For me I got it finally fixed (for now) by various tips in this thread:

• System Settings -> Desktop & Dock -> Mission control: set toggle active for "Automatically rearrange Spaces on most recent use (logout required)

It already worked after this step! But did not want Stage Manager (sorry Apple..)

• System Settings -> Desktop & Dock -> Desktop & Stage Manager: set toggle inactive for Stage Manager

And huray, it still works! CMD ~ is back for me 💃

This is still malfunctioning for me too. My workaround is to CMD Tab to another window, and CMD Tab back. Then CMD Tilda works for me.

Sonoma 14.4.1

Stage manager on = no CMD Tilda

Stage manager off = working CMD Tilda

Such a shame, I was just starting to like my open tabs set off to the side of my screen with SM.. but I rely on CMT tilda. Looking forward to a fix on this one 🤞!

I was able to fix this issue by unchecking "Move focus to next window" checkbox in keyboard shortcuts settings, saving it and then again checking it.

Yeah it's fixed in Sonoma 14.2

On Air M1, 14.3.1.

Issue just started a couple days ago for unknown reason (no updates). I tried all the things on this thread, no help. I just rebooted -- I don't do that very often -- and it's working now. I hope Apple works this out -- I'm sunk without cmd-tilde, as I usually have 5 chrome windows.

gabrielschulhof wrote:

macOS: Sonoma 14.0

The current version is 14.1.1. You should update.

For what it is worth -

Command+` will not work for cycling through Chrome windows if you are running them in "full screen" view. Even using the above helpful fixes. Took me a while to figure that out!!

Hi - I had the same problem then i swtiched my keyboard to British PC . Throws a couple things off but its the closest ive gotten to allow me to use Command Tilde and switch between windows of same app.

I'm having this issue specifically with Safari

• Mac mini m4
• Safari 18.5

cmd+` works fine in other apps but it doesn't work with safari.

I'm using a keyboard layout called USPC which is in English but with dead keys for special characters like á ñ and so on.

When this layout is enabled, the cmd+` combination doesn't work in Safari but it does in other apps, but as soon as I move to the regular US keyboard layout it starts working on Safari too.

I think the issue is related to dead keys in the keyboard layout (` being a dead key in those cases)

gabrielschulhof wrote:

1. Steps to reproduce

Open Terminal and create multiple windows.

2. Open Google Chrome and create multiple windows.

3. Press command tab followed immediately by command shift tab (i.e., you changed your mind and you want to go back to the application that had the focus after all)

4. Press Command + Tilde.

5.

At this point, switching between windows using Command + Tilde doesn't work.

Now,

Press Command + Tab to switch to the other multi-window app.

6. Press Command + Tilde

At this point, switching between windows does work.

In conclusion, you can't switch between windows using Command + Tilde if you use Command + Tab followed immediately by Command + Shift + Tab to start switching away from a multi-window app but then immediately switch back to it.

You do not say what exact Mac or what exact macOS.

I have never used your work flow as presented...

I do use Command Tab all the time for the HUD (Heads Up Display) for all running apps.

There are alternative methods, and Sonoma has introduced Stage Manager, which seems to compete with some shortcuts.

Organize your Mac desktop with Stage Manager

Exposé — is four finger swipe down and will present all open windows.

ref: See open windows and spaces in Mission Control on Mac

Keep your Mac up to date The current stable release of Sonoma is macOS 14.1.1

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support