I accidentally put an app into full screen on my Mac and now I can’t seem to get it back to its regular window. What are the steps to exit full screen mode? I need to quickly go back to multitasking, so any help would be appreciated.
LOL, Mac making you feel trapped in full screen? Happens to the best of us. The escape route is actually stupid simple but macOS seems to hide it like it’s some kind of secret society handshake. Just hover your mouse at the very top of the screen – like, REALLY up there until the menu bar pops down like a scared raccoon. Then find the little green dot in the upper left corner of your app window (next to the red and yellow dots). Click that and BAM, you’re out of full screen and back to the world of multitasking and endless distractions.
Pro tip: Next time, you can also hit Ctrl + Command + F and it’ll pop you in or out of full screen faster than you can say “where’s my desktop?!”
Seriously, it’s that easy, but somehow feels like trying to find hidden treasure the first time it happens. Welcome back to the chaos of regular windows.
Honestly, full screen on Mac is more like a stubborn cat than a trap: it goes in and doesn’t want to come out when you call it. Yeah, everyone’s already mentioned the classic green button trick up there, but let’s be real – sometimes that thing disappears, or you overshoot with your mouse and wonder if you’re about to open a wormhole instead of a menu bar.
Here’s another angle: try using Mission Control (swipe up with three fingers on your trackpad or hit F3). This gives you a helicopter view of all your open spaces and full-screen apps. Just drag the app’s window thumbnail back down onto the desktop area, or close the full screen instance at the top with the tiny ‘x’.
Alternatively, if your mouse is on a siesta or the green dot is acting shy, you can right-click (or two-finger click) the app’s icon down in the Dock and choose “Options” > “Assign to Desktop,” which sometimes bumps stubborn apps out of full-screen. Not every app plays nice, but it can help with some stubborn third-party ones that forget how to behave.
And let’s be honest: half the time, I’m not even in fullscreen on purpose – macOS has this weird telepathy where it reads your mind’s weakest moments and thinks “let’s maximize the chaos.”
Kinda disagree with @voyageurdubois on the green dot always being the fastest though – if you’re using Universal Control, or a sidecar display, you’ll sometimes find the keyboard shortcut doesn’t play nice and the menu bar doesn’t drop down where you expect (super frustrating). Sometimes, literally, the fastest way is to command-tab out of full screen, control-click the icon on the Dock, and choose “Show All Windows” to get the app back to regular window mode. MacOS: always keeping us on our toes with the simplest things!
But hey, if nothing else works, dramatic sigh and just Force Quit. Every Mac user’s final move, right?
Hope you’re not too scarred by the secret world of Mac full screen.