Download Hides 5.6.1 (Mac) – Download Free

When you only have one monitor, you can run out of screen real estate quickly, especially on smaller laptops. It’s easy to cycle through windows, but that usually means other apps will be visible in the background. This isn’t ideal if you want to avoid distractions.

hides Can help eliminate clutter on your desktop by automatically hiding all but the ones you’re currently using. Focus mode can be enabled for all apps or just specific apps, and hotkeys to toggle this mode and other functions can be customized.

Automatically hide background apps

While this might not seem like a big deal, trying to focus on something while having a bunch of other windows in the background can be distracting. You can always hide them manually, but it’s cumbersome and has to hide another app every time you switch to a different window.

With Hides, this is all done automatically. Only one application and all its open windows can be seen at a time. Focus mode can be enabled from the main UI, the menu bar, or via a customizable hotkey.

Use focus mode for a specific application

If you only want to hide background apps in certain situations, Hide allows you to specify which apps should be considered. If set to default, all apps will be hidden when not in the foreground.

In addition to focus shortcuts, you can define hotkeys to hide all apps at once or all apps except the active app. However, there is already a macOS shortcut for the latter feature, so it probably won’t be of much use.

Can prove helpful for certain workflows

Hiding isn’t for everyone. Unless you really want to have only one app on screen at any given time, it can actually interfere w ith your work. But if you’re after the ultimate distraction-free environment, it might be just what you need.