How can I switch between open applications?

Question

Pressing alt + tab brings up a carousel of all the icons of my open applications, and by hitting tab I can cycle through them. By releasing tab it brings the window of the application I'm currently on to the front of the screen.

But how do I quickly and efficiently jump to an application that has multiple windows open? I often have multiple Terminal windows open, for example. But I have to cycle onto the terminal icon, and then cycle through all of the open terminal windows to find the window I want.

In OSX, an application with multiple windows can still be quickly 'tabbed' into because it opens the last window of the application that you were working on (I think). Can I emulate this behaviour, or at least speed up my workflow in Ubuntu? I want to jump between sublime text and the last terminal window I was working in (of my many terminal windows).

So do you want a specific terminal window or the last one? The OSX example you've given mentions the "last window" but you later mention "a specific window" of many. — , Oct 12 '13 at 12:48

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 12 '13 at 13:06

11

Pressing alt + ` will bring up the app switcher but only for windows of that application, if that's what you're looking for.

Also, Super + Tab will switch through applications by running down the Unity Launcher, and when you open the application with multiple windows, it will automatically open the last active window.

answered Oct 12 '13 at 13:06

WhatTheBuck

607

1 for super + tab (for fellow Ubuntu beginners, super is the windows button on PC, the apple button on Mac), but this doesn't work quite as well as in OSX. There you can switch between two applications (the last two you've used, out of many) just by hitting alt + tab. Is the behaviour available? If not, this will probably be the nearest answer.

Starkers

Oct 12 '13 at 13:16

Using Alt-Tab will bring up a small overlay of all running applications. Pressing it again will automatically switch to the last opened one (before the active one). Otherwise, I'm not sure what behavior you're describing, as I've never seen such on OS X. – WhatTheBuck Oct 12 '13 at 13:28

Harsh Verma · Answer 2 · 2022-12-04T04:10:34.813

2

When too many apps are open, searching in the Activities Overview can prove to be more useful. Activities Overview can be accessed with the Super key.

For example, to quickly switch to using the Google Chrome app :

Press Super
Type prefix "ch" and press Enter to switch to using the Google Chrome app.

With this method, you jump directly to the desired app without having to worry about the open windows.

edited Dec 04 '22 at 04:10

answered Dec 04 '22 at 04:03

Harsh Verma

191

Harsh Verma · Answer 3 · 2023-01-13T12:17:07.823

You can create keyboard shortcuts(key bindings) to jump to your preferred apps quickly using jumpapp.

For example, since I am a software engineer who relies on efficiently using the Terminal, Google-Chrome, and Visual-Studio-Code apps a lot, I bound:

Terminal: Ctrl + P
Google Chome: Alt + Q
Visual Studio Code: Ctrl + M

It took a little while to build muscle memory, but the benefit definitely outweighed the cost.

important : Because jumpapp works best with X11 window manager, you will need to switch from Wayland(default window manager) to X11 window manager using instructions here or here

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 28 '16 at 09:30

1

If you press Alt + Tab and get into the application switcher, you can press Up or Down keys to switch between different windows of the currently highlighted app.

answered Jul 28 '16 at 09:30

cduguet

111

How can I switch between open applications?

4 Answers4