The Apple Dock and Browser Window Sorting

Factual Questions
1

I’m so sorry if the title is confusing, but I don’t really know how to ask what I need help with. It concerns the Dock utility on a Macbook, and the way it displays the browser windows.

First of all, I’ve been a long-time Windows user but am now using a Macbook on a daily basis. There is one area of functionality that is really slowing me down and frustrating my life, and that is the way that the browser thumbnails are displayed/sorted when I right-click on Chrome in the Dock.

On Windows, when there are multiple browser windows open and you right-click on the icon in the task bar, the windows are displayed from left-to-right in the order that they were opened. For example, let’s say I have no browser windows open. I launch Chrome and open 2 tabs; for giggles, let’s say I open Gmail and the SDMB. Then, I open up a new Chrome window, and open up 3 tabs in this order: USA Today, Fark, and Reddit. When I hover over the Chrome icon in the task bar, it shows two thumbnails, with the first window on the left and the second window on the right. The title of the thumbnail displays the title from the active tab on the browser window (e.g.: SDMB in the first window, and Reddit in the second window).

Now, let’s replay the same scenario on an Apple Macbook. This time, when I hover over the Chrome icon in the Apple Dock, I don’t get thumbnails. Instead, I get a list of the browser instances, sorted alphabetically by the active tab for the browser: Reddit, followed by SDMB. Then, let’s say I go from the SDMB tab to the Gmail tab; now the order is Gmail, followed by Reddit.

The problem is that, depending on what tab was active, the position of the browser instance can float around. Every freakin’ time I hover over the Chrome icon in the Dock, I have to open up each instance to find the one that contains the tabs I want to view.

I typically have 5 browser windows open, with an average of 12 tabs per browser window. Having to open up every browser instance multiple times each day is really getting old and is slowing me down more than I would have expected. I want to have the browser thumbnails remain positioned by order so I can remember that my primary tabs are in spot #1, and my secondary tabs are in spot #2, etc.

Can this be done or am I completely doomed?

2

I don’t have a Mac anymore, but my impression is that Exposé (now called Mission Control?) could circumvent your problem: pressing F3 or F9 will show you all your windows side by side, and then you can click on the Chrome window you want.

3

I don’t use Chrome, and I don’t use the Dock to manage my windows, but F10 will show you all of the windows of the currently front-most application. F9 shows ALL windows of ALL running applications. F11 shows the Desktop.
Note that depending on the machine, you may need to press the Fn key to override the default Function Key setting (e.g. - F11 is Volume Up until Fn+F11 is pressed.)

This feature is called Exposé, and it is very, very handy. For example, you can use it in the middle of a drag-copy from one application’s window to another.

4

When I mouse over Firefox on the dock, I just get a little tooltip that says “Firefox”. If I right-click on it, I get a menu which includes the titles of all open windows.

5

If you don’t want to use function keys, you might find trackpad gestures useful. I’m on a desktop Mac using a trackpad, but I assume the Macbook functionality is the same or similar. On the Trackpad pane in System Preferences, under “More Gestures”, look for App Exposé. On mine, it’s configured so that swiping down with three fingers will show all the windows for the front-most application. Then just click on the one you want.

6

This is called “thumbnail previews” applied to browser tabs. Unfortunately I don’t think that feature exists on macOS. There was a 3rd-party app called HyperDock which I think did this but it has apparently been abandoned. Maybe someone else has a suggestion.

You can display all Safari tabs as tiles (assuming Safari has focus) with SHFT+CMD+\

For Chrome on Mac there’s a similar extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-manager/okeooekaaniggaignhhfeddohlcjadkd?hl=en-US

There are lots of other shortcuts features of the Mac app switcher:

https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/unlock-the-full-power-of-the-macos-app-switcher/

MacOS has built-in features that Windows does not such as Quick Look: A guide to macOS Mojave’s Quick Look improvements | Apple Must

and Preview: Preview User Guide for Mac – Apple Support (UK)

However it does not have thumbnail previews in the dock, neither for regular windows or for browser tabs. I agree that is a useful feature on Windows.