I tried active corners but I had to disable them because I was constantly triggering it by accident. Programs always put tools or scroll bars near the corners of the screen, and since I used dual monitors, the corners between the screens caused issues.

I found this online, I will try it later:

Shift-Command-D: Open the desktop folder.

Edit: it doesn't do anything on my MacBook

[–] lucyka@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

ah, yeah that sounds annoying. I think if it’s a MacBook you can also assign some of the 3 or 4 finger gestures to it

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For keyboard: Mine is set to F11, but Idk if that's standard or something I configured. You can check your binding here: System Preferences => Keyboard => Shortcuts => Mission Control => Show Desktop

But I find that the more intuitive and satisfying experience is using the trackpad, where the default gesture is to spread all of your fingers apart to show the desktop, and then you can pinch them back together to restore your previous window.

[–] player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the help, I'm new to macOS, using it for work now. F11 is a volume key on macbook which I use frequently but fn+F11 does minimize to desktop, so that's good to know although not ergonomic.

I usually end up using the track pad gestures too, and they work well in laptop mode but since my MacBook is usually docked on my desk and I'm using a BT keyboard/mouse it's annoying having to take my hands off the keyboard and look up every time.

I'm frustrated that I can't even alt-tab since it won't select any program that is minimized or has more than 1 window open so I have to use mission control every time and hunt for the right window. I'll give Stage Manager a try in the new update.