Short cut key to minimize all the windows

You can combine the Hide All keyboard shortcut (Command+Option+H) which hides all windows except the currently active window with the Minimize Active Window keyboard shortcut (Command+Option+M) referenced above.

To invoke this third ‘Minimize and Hide All’ shortcut press the Command+Option+H+M keys in Lion and Mountain Lion.

But it is just as easy to double-click Mission Control on the Dock to the “Show Desktop” option and then restore the entire window layouts by double-clicking Mission Control on the Dock a second time.

Like mentioned many times, F11 moves all open windows sideways so you can see the desktop, but it doesn't perform neither "Minimize" nor "Hide" operations on any of the windows.

The difference is: whatever you do next, all the open windows come back to the screen. When they are minimized/hidden, they stay that way. This, and only this is the desired behavior that this question is about.

Somebody please correct me if I got it wrong.

I have the same question, but the hotkeys "Option-Command-M" don't do that, because it doesn't show the desktop. And for some reason mac OS Sierra 10.12.5 doesn't work with my PC keyboard, so again, something Windows does better, since all you have to do is click the corner rectangle on the right bottom of the screen.

None of the answers so far have made any difference in helping me expose the desktop from all the currently active windows. Windows does it better again, well I guess it "can do it" just by clicking the bottom right rectangle, very straightforward, instead of making us run in circles like mac OS and not arriving anywhere.

F11

Failed attempt, "Mission Control" doesn't do the trick, it just shows you the utilized windows, but it doesn't show you the desktop.

Still can't accomplish this minimizing of the windows to be able to see the desktop icons.

Option-Command-M

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343

It works for all windows of the active application, not all windows for all applications. You didn't make that distiction in your original post.

The command has been the same in all versions of OSX.

Does anyone happen to know any application that could minimize all windows (meaning all windows from all applications from all developers etc) on one single hotkey?

Something as simple as Win-D in Windows?

Thanks for sharing, your information solved my problem.

Just found this thread and was playing around with mission control based on the above post, and then thought "gesture" ... so if you have a mac trackpad, just take your five fingers bunched up and do a "spread" gesture -- all windows fly to the top and right of the screen and become narrow silver bars. You guessed it, do the opposite gesture to immediately restore the windows. Since I'm on a big bad iMac, and just created a wickedly cool switchfoot desktop image with multiple layers, this is just a thing of beauty ...😎

I think most people came here want quick access to their desktop and do not care if the operation is "hide" or "minimize".

The bad news is I never found a satisfying build-in solution - and I searched a lot. Most shortcuts hide/minimize the current window, all windows of the current application or all other windows. None of them hides/minimizes all the windows of all applications (if you found one, let me know).

The good news is there is a workaround.

1. Save this AppleScript using AppleScript-Editor in /Users/#you#/Library/Scripts (e.g. "ShowDesktop.scpt")

activate application "Finder"

tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Finder"

    click menu item "Hide Others" of menu "Finder" of menu bar 1

    click menu item "Minimize" of menu "Window" of menu bar 1

end tell

2. In Quicksilver (don't have it? Go: http://qsapp.com/) and add a hotkey-trigger ('Triggers...' -> '+' -> 'HotKey' -> 'Select an item = #your-script#' -> 'Action = Run'). (To set the actual hotkey double-click the Trigger-column)

Step 2 may also be done with other Hotkey-Apps like "Shortcuts", but Quicksilver is free.

"Can't I just put this AppleScript into a service for every application via Automator and set a shortcut in System Preferences?"

Yes, you could. But than you would have to allow every application to control your computer in Privacy-settings (not a good idea).

Enjoy.

P.S.: If you have multiple Finder-windows open, only one of them will disappear. Solution: Get productive - go to the Appstore, get Forklift and do not use Finder any more ;-)

System Preferences --> Mission Control ---> Look at the bottom left corner of the Mission Control preference windows and click 'Hot Corners'. Pick any one of the four Hot Corners and select Desktop, click OK. Now when you put your mouse cursor in that Hot Corner it will move all active windows to the edge of the screen* and show you the desktop! *When you want your windows to return to active, click an edge of the screen. You will notice it puts a grey edge around the screen while showing you the desktop. Hope that helps. Simple solution.

To Show Desktop (its not exactly Minimizing all, but close to it), I set up like below (In Yosemite).

Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control > Show Desktop > "Select Option+M" Key. (As u can guess, I am very recent convert from Windows (less than a week), so until I learn the true Mac commands, I will have it the Windows way for certain things like this.