Keyboard Shortcut to Cycle through Windows of same Application in Windows 7 [closed]

Question

I would have expected this to be a very simple task: switching between windows of the same application, but I can't seem to find the shortcut to do it. I generally have several windows of applications like Chrome (each window holding all the tabs related to a particular topic).

The behaviour I am looking for is what is implemented in Mac OSX with the Cmd+~ keyboard shortcut.

Is there a way to achieve the same on Windows 7?

Guidance

If the program is open on your task bar, hitting the Windows Key and the number of the location on the task bar will cycle through those applications. My web browser is pinned to the first location, so Windows Key + 1 cycles through my open web browser windows. – Griego

Ctrl + Tab will cycle through all the opened tab of browser.. – Medwin

@NickGarvey Well, that works but not exactly what I am looking for. – Guidance

You can download Easy Windows Switcher neosmart.net/EasySwitch it does just that. Very convenient app and it works with any Windows version – Cabana

I didn't like any of the solutions proposed here, I was really looking for the equivalent of Alt+~ on MacOS and Ubuntu. In case someone was looking for the same thing as me, this is what worked for me: superuser.com/a/1721255/694663 – Buckboard

Answer 1

There is no such a keyboard shortcut but holding Ctrl + clicking on the icon in the taskbar repeatedly will cycle through that program's open windows.

Unclassical

That's great to find, although avoiding that click somehow would have been easier. Ubuntu does it so well. – Ananthous

Just found out holding Shift + clicking on the icon in the taskbar will create a new window of the program. – Grackle

Answer 2

See https://superuser.com/questions/435602/shortcut-in-windows-7-to-switch-between-same-applications-windows-like-cmd.

Scott's answer is the closest one I've found to doing this. To summarize what he said:

Win + n where n is the number position of the application in the TaskBar. Then to cycle through, keep Win down and press n again.

(Updated thanks to @ZYinMD's comments - but also see their 1st comment)

Sulphide

If you use ctrl+win+n it'd skip the thumbnail view and instantly switch exactly like mac – Loudmouth

Good to know. Note also that the thumbnails are only shown if a program has more than one window available; in that case, using ctrl+win+n will default to the first one. – Sulphide

Same can be said to Win + n. Speaking of which, you may want to edit your answer to be win + n n n instead of win + n. Also, n is not "the number of the application", it's "the position of the application on Taskbar", you may want to edit that too. – Loudmouth

Ah gotcha, have updated so it's clearer. – Sulphide

Wow! That is even better than the way it works on mac. Thanks for sharing! – Offbeat

This is the real thing, thank you (thumbs up and an upvote of course) – Detrition

This doesn't seem to work on Windows 11. ctrl + win + n opens Narrator settings. – Veracruz

@NordlingArt I've confirmed that ctrl + win + n does work. It only opens narrator settings if you use the literal n key. n is a number. Take another look at this answer, "where n is the number position of the application in the TaskBar". Otherwise how would windows know which app you wanted to target? – Linebacker

@Linebacker thank you for clarifying what n meant in this context. On Mac it targets the app currently in focus and toggles it’s windows one by one. I was hoping Windows did the same. – Veracruz

Answer 3

Use AltEsc for fast switching without any GUI pop up

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https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12445/windows-keyboard-shortcuts

Xylophagous

@Amalle no. test it yourself? – Xylophagous

for me, thats all it does. Windows 10. Which could be the problem, since you posted for win7 – Amalle

Then i guess you have something overriding your shortcuts. Alt + Esc is an official windows 7,8,10 shortcut as seen here.support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12445/… – Xylophagous

My mistake. It seemed to minimize because the window just "disappeared", but in reality it was "sent to the back" of all the other windows open. Cycle through items in the order in which they were opened is the official wording. Learned something new! It DOES still cycle between ALL open windows, however, and not application specific – Amalle

This shortcut will only cycle through windows that are open on your current desktop if you have multiple desktops enabled on your machine. So if you're on desktop 1, it won't cycle over to desktop 2 to continue. – Mckee

Answer 4

Maybe related: If you want that the windows open directly when click on the stacked taskbar symbol (instead of opening the list), you can add the DWORD "LastActiveClick" to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

and set it to 1.

Aldebaran