It’s not uncommon for me to have multiple Finder windows open at once on my Mac. Often I’m cleaning up my drive, moving files from downloads to where I want them.
When I’m done, I naturally want to close all my Finder windows. Normally, if you go to the File menu in Finder, you’ll see an option to close the current window.
It can be annoying, and potentially time-consuming to go to every Finder window and close it. Even if I close using the red X button, I still have to go to each Finder window. It’d be nice to just close them all at once.
This is yet another instance where the OPTION key will be our friend. Simply hold down the OPTION key and the menu option will update.
You can simply click Close All and all open Finder windows will be exited. Alternatively, you can also press CMD+OPTION+W on the keyboard and all your Finder windows will be closed.
As an added bonus, this not only works in Finder but with any application that allows you to have multiple copies of the program open. For example, I opened up multiple copies of BBEdit and using the OPTION key enabled the Close All Windows choice. Do note though, the shortcut key may vary with each application.
This technique works on Big Sur, Catalina, and other recent versions of Apple macOS.
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