Did You Know You Can Clear Most Windows By Shaking the Title Bar?

True to its name, sometimes Windows simply fills up with too many windows. You don’t need to spend your time minimizing and closing all these windows, however: Instead, you can use a trick built into the OS that lets you focus on the task at hand right away.

Windows 11 has an option called “Title bar window shake.” When enabled, you can grab a window’s title bar and shake it, which will immediately minimize all other windows that are currently open. That way, the window you’ve shaken will be front and center, without any other windows getting in the way.

To make sure this setting is enabled, head to Start > Settings > System > Multitasking. (Alternatively, you can search for something like “window shake” in Settings.) From here, make sure the toggle next to “Title bar window shake” is turned on. (The toggle will turn blue, and the text next to it will read “On.”

Even if you aren’t running Windows 11, you should still have this option embedded in your Windows settings. Microsoft has carried this feature over from previous versions of its OS, and while it isn’t enabled by default, it’s a useful way to quickly get focused (if you know about it, that is).