If you are researching a topic and have a dozen different application windows layered chaotically across your desktop, minimizing them one by one to reveal your desktop is incredibly frustrating. Microsoft previously solved this problem with a famous Windows 7 feature called “Aero Shake,” which allowed you to grab a single window by its title bar and rapidly shake it back and forth to instantly minimize everything else.
While Microsoft initially disabled this feature by default in Windows 11 to prevent accidental triggers, they left a simple toggle in the system settings allowing power users to turn it back on.
How to Enable Title Bar Window Shake
- Open the Windows 11 Settings app (press
Windows Key + I). - In the left-hand navigation pane, select the System tab.
- Scroll down on the right side of the screen and click on Multitasking.
- Locate the toggle switch labeled Title bar window shake (the description reads: “When I grab a window’s title bar and shake it, minimize all other windows”).
- Toggle this switch to the On position.
How to Use the Gesture
You can test the feature immediately without restarting your computer.
- Open three or four different applications (like File Explorer, a web browser, and Notepad) and let them overlap on your screen.
- Decide which single window you want to keep visible (your primary workspace).
- Click and hold your left mouse button firmly on the very top edge (the title bar) of that specific window.
- While holding the mouse button down, rapidly shake your mouse left and right three or four times.
The moment you complete the shake gesture, every other open application on your desktop will instantly vanish, minimizing straight to the taskbar and leaving you alone with your primary window.
If you realize you made a mistake and want all of those windows back exactly where they were, simply grab the title bar of your active window and shake it a second time. All of the minimized windows will instantly pop back up into their original, layered positions.