How to Enable Single Application Mode in Mac OS X

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Posted May 10, 2014 at 7:02pm by iClarified

These are instructions on how to enable Single Application Mode in Mac OS X.

Single Application Mode automatically hides all other open applications when you select an application from your dock.

Step One
Double click to launch Terminal from your Applications:Utilities folder.

Step Two
Input the following command into the Terminal window and press Enter.

defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool true

Step Three
Input the following command to make the change take immediate effect and press Enter.

killall Dock

Step Four
You will now notice that clicking on an application in the dock will hide all other open applications. Notably, single application mode does not apply to keyboard shortcuts. Thus, you can still use Command+Tab to view multiple applications at the same time.

EXIT SINGLE APPLICATION MODE
To exit Single Application mode, simply input the following commands into the Terminal window.

defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool false
killall Dock

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lepaka - May 12, 2014 at 8:44am

waste of time, who doesn't want to live with the wonderful multitasking developed since the first step of OS X! 0.00000000000000000001% of the users may will try this :)

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Great! - May 11, 2014 at 1:52am

I wonder if this applies to iOS.

gamerscul9870 - May 11, 2014 at 1:55am

Hundreds of things that iOS doesn't have osx has. Combining this is like windows so it's a bad idea.

zetaprime - May 10, 2014 at 11:44pm

Exactly why would one want to cripple their computer in this manner?

Curious Guy - May 11, 2014 at 3:17am

Why? How about a demo on a trade show floor?

gamerscul9870 - May 10, 2014 at 7:33pm

Terminal=command prompt.