Readers Ask Cult of Mac Answers: How Do I Access The Task Switcher? [OS X Tips]

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I was checking for new mail in my Cult of Mac mailbox the other day and ran into a new message from Cult of Mac reader Justin Kurian.  He wrote:

…’Apple iMac Users Experience More Graphic Anomalies

Hi David,

I was reading your article and noticed the picture of the task switcher in Lion. How do I access that? I hate how they got rid of the swipe function for it.  Thanks!

– Justin

Accessing the Task Switcher in Mac OS X Lion is easy and I’ll show you how to do that today. Plus we’ll look at using swiping gestures while the Task Switcher is active.

You can use the Task Switcher in Mac OS X by pressing and holding the Command+Tab key.  This brings up the Task Switcher which shows you the running apps on your Mac. If you repeatedly press the Tab key the Task Switcher rotates through the app icons. Stop on the one you want to switch to and you’ll be brought to that app immediately. If the app is running full screen or on another desktop space you’ll be switched to that app or desktop.

If you have a trackpad and the Task Switcher is active and the mouse cursor is hovering over it you can use a one fingered left or right swipe to behave in the same fashion as hitting the Tab key repeatedly above. If you use two fingers instead you can turbo scroll through the app icons in the Task Switcher which is handy if you have a lot of apps running.

The box around the Finder app icon shows it is the currently selected app.

If you use three fingers to swipe something different happens – you end up dragging the displayed list of app icons in the Task Switcher between your current desktop and other full screen apps or desktops. Basically this means that the Task Switch stays frozen in place, but the background desktop or full screen app changes as you swipe left or right.

Finally there is one thing to remember – once you use the Command+Tab keys to launch the Task Switcher you must continue to hold the Command key while it is active so that the swipes work. If you let go the Task Switcher exits until you hit Command+Tab again.

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