Merge All Safari Windows Into One With A Keyboard Shortcut [OS X Tips]

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Because you can, that's why.
Because you can, that's why.

If you’re not careful when using Safari, you could end up with a screen full of open website windows. Safari’s default behavior when opening a new link is to do so in a new window. This drove me nuts until I figured out I could just Control-click any links and they’d appear nicely in a new tab instead of a new window.

On the occasions I forget that feature and end up with a ton of open windows, there’s always the “Merge All Windows” menu command in the Window menu. It’s a slick piece of kit, but I’d like to trigger it with a keyboard combination. Here’s how.

First of all, open up System Preferences, either from the Applications menu or the Apple menu (in the upper left of your screen). Next, go to the Keyboard pane and select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab at the top.

The list on the left side of the window will show Application Shortcuts. Click on that, and then click on the plus button to add a new shortcut. Click on the drop down list of applications, choosing Safari as your target. Type in Merge All Windows as your menu title, and be sure you spell it and capitalize it exactly as it is in the Safari Window menu.

Click in the Keyboard Shortcut field and type the combination you want to use. I used Shift-Command-W for my easy to use shortcut. You can choose your own, but be sure it makes some sort of sense to you or you won’t remember. Click on the Add confirmation button, quit System Preferences, and then head over to Safari to try it out. If it doesn’t work, then you may have chosen a keyboard shortcut that Safari already uses, or you haven’t spelled the menu command in exactly the same way.

If it did work, congrats! Now you can power keyboard shortcut your way to a less cluttered Safari experience. Now if only Chrome could do that, I’d be a happier man.

Got an OS X tip of your own? Need help troubleshooting OS X? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.

Via: OS X Daily

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