How To Zoom Out On Mac

If your image is too pixelated to understand, or if you’re having difficulty navigating through a magnified window, you can simply zoom out on your Mac. The macOS accessibility settings let you zoom out on either a single window or the entire display.

When you zoom out a single window, it will only affect the contents inside of that window. The display in the background will remain as it is. On the other hand, zooming out the entire screen will shrink everything on your display, including the running apps and docs.

Table of Contents

Before You Begin

If your entire display is zoomed in, you’ll need to configure your system zoom settings beforehand. Here, you have to first enable the option to toggle your system zoom. Then, you’ll need to assign a particular button to help you zoom out your display.

Open Finder.
Go to Apple > System Preferences on the menu bar.
Open your Accessibility settings.
Select Zoom from the sidebar.
Here, enable the option to Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom.
Also, enable Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom.
Select your modifier key from the dropdown menu. This key will later be used to zoom out on your Mac.

Using Keyboard Shortcut Keys

macOS lets you navigate the entire operating system using only the keyboard. So, you can zoom out using certain keyboard shortcuts as well.

On Single Window

If you want to zoom out contents inside a single particular window, tap the Command + – keys. However, make sure the window you want to zoom out on is active and running in the foreground. The background applications and inactive directories will remain unchanged.

On Entire Screen

As we mentioned above, zooming out on your entire screen will zoom out your display. However, you have to make sure that this feature is enabled on your System Preferences panel. If so, then press the Option + Command + – keys on your keyboard to zoom out.

Using Gestures

An efficient way to zoom out on your Mac is using your mouse/trackpad. When you perform certain specific gestures on your mouse or trackpad, you can zoom out from any point of your screen.

On Single Window

To zoom out on a single active window, you have to rely on the pinch gesture. That is, if you pinch your trackpad using two fingers, you can zoom out. Additionally, the macOS smart zoom feature lets you double tap your trackpad with two fingers to toggle between zoom in/out. However, you have to alter your trackpad settings to do so.

Open Finder.
Go to Apple > System Preferences on the menu bar.
Open your Trackpad settings.
Navigate to the Scroll & Zoom tab.
Enable Smart Zoom.

Similarly, if you’re using an Apple Magic Mouse, double tap your mouse with one finger to toggle between zoom in/out.

Open Finder.
Go to Apple > System Preferences on the menu bar.
Open your Mouse settings.
Navigate to the Point & Click tab.
Enable Smart Zoom.

On Entire Screen

Zooming out the entire display requires you to set a particular modifier key as your action button. You probably did so when you set up your zoom settings using the methods shown above.

So, to zoom out your entire display, hold either Control, Option, or Command (depending our your configuration) and slide two fingers downwards on your magic mouse or trackpad.

Zoom Out Your Touch Bar

This step is relevant only for Macbook pro users who have a touch bar on their laptops. The touch bar is located on top of your keyboard, below your screen. But, you can expand this touch bar to relocate it to the bottom of your desktop.

So, if your touch bar is zoomed in on the desktop window, you can zoom it out to clear that space on your screen. The touch bar will then return to its original place.

Open Finder.
Go to Apple > System Preferences on the menu bar.
Open your Accessibility settings.
Select Zoom from the sidebar.
Uncheck the option to Enable Touch Bar zoom.

Disable Hover Text

Hover text is a feature of macOS that displays a zoomed-in version of anything your pointer is pointing towards. That is, if you hold Command on your keyboard and hold click on your mouse/touchpad over an image/text/button on the screen, you’ll see a zoomed-in version of it.

So, if you’re having a problem managing this feature on your computer, you can simply turn it off to zoom out of the hover text and return back to the normal window.