CmdTabMax

MacOS, annoyingly, does not restore windows when you Cmd-Tab to them. This fixes that.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stoutput/cmd-tab-max/main/install.sh | bash

On first launch you'll be prompted to grant Accessibility permission — required for the keyboard event tap.

Uninstall

launchctl bootout "gui/$(id -u)" ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.stoutput.cmdtabmax.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.stoutput.cmdtabmax.plist /usr/local/bin/CmdTabMax

How it works

CmdTabMax installs a global keyboard event tap. When it detects Cmd being released after a Cmd-Tab sequence, it injects the Option modifier into that event before the system processes it. This triggers macOS's built-in App Switcher behaviour for Option+Cmd-release, which restores any minimized windows of the switched-to app. The Option key is then released 50ms later so it doesn't bleed into the new app.

No private frameworks. No window resizing via Accessibility API.

Build from source

Requires Xcode command-line tools.

git clone https://github.com/stoutput/cmd-tab-max.git
cd cmd-tab-max
make install

Releasing

Bump the Version key in com.stoutput.cmdtabmax.plist and push to main — a release is created automatically.