macOS: switch between different windows of the same application

Maybe this is well-known to macOS users, but it wasn’t clear to me as a Linux user.

As a Linux user, I’m used to using Alt+Tab to switch between different windows. But I also use the shortcut to switch between different windows of the same application. In Gnome, the shortcut is Alt+<the key above Tab>, which is cool because it works with any keyboard layout. In KDE it is Alt+backtick (`), which has to be changed in Italian keyboards, like mine to Alt+\. Indeed, in the Italian keyboard layout, the key over tab is \.

In macOS it’s the same as in KDE: the shortcut is bound by default to ⌘+`, which of course it’s unusable in Italian keyboards (you should use a complex combination of keys only to insert the backtick ` character). You then have to configure the shortcut “Move focus to next window”, which is quite counterintuitive to me (I had always thought that it wasn’t possible in macOS to switch between windows of the same application if not by using the touchpad gesture or by pressing the down key after using the standard switcher):

Change it to something suitable for your keyboard layout. For the Italian layout I change it to ⌘+\:

And then you’re good to go! 🙂

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