Close all open items in Dock

I've searched for the answer to this but none seem relevant or work.


I have about 20 open documents to the right of the dock. It's not even possible to get rid of them individually by right clicking, close. I have to open/maximise each one, then close using the red button - so tedious.


I've seen advice to uncheck "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" in preferences but I'd like to be in control of this and keep them open if I need to.


Isn't this possible??

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Jul 30, 2018 3:15 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 30, 2018 5:48 AM

I suggest you don’t use the Dock for this purpose. Let me explain. Each open document is open by some application.

You need to tell the relevant application to close it.

Clicking the red button is not the most efficient way to close, either. In most applications you can use Command-W and not have to take your hands off the keyboard. (Note: if a window has several tabs in it, Command-W is NOT usually the same as pressing the red button anymore; it will close the active tab and not the whole window)


In many applications you can close all windows at once by pressing Command-Option-W.


So a quick way to review and close mant windows and/tabs: Command-tab to switch to an application, then Command-W or Command-Option-W as needed, Command-tab, etc.

If you have to deal with 20 windows from 4 different applications this is way faster than the huge travelling involved in going to the bottom right of the Dock to near the top left to click, etc

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 30, 2018 5:48 AM in response to jicms

I suggest you don’t use the Dock for this purpose. Let me explain. Each open document is open by some application.

You need to tell the relevant application to close it.

Clicking the red button is not the most efficient way to close, either. In most applications you can use Command-W and not have to take your hands off the keyboard. (Note: if a window has several tabs in it, Command-W is NOT usually the same as pressing the red button anymore; it will close the active tab and not the whole window)


In many applications you can close all windows at once by pressing Command-Option-W.


So a quick way to review and close mant windows and/tabs: Command-tab to switch to an application, then Command-W or Command-Option-W as needed, Command-tab, etc.

If you have to deal with 20 windows from 4 different applications this is way faster than the huge travelling involved in going to the bottom right of the Dock to near the top left to click, etc

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Close all open items in Dock

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