{"id":380054,"date":"2026-04-15T03:56:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/380054\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T03:56:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:56:27","slug":"a-microsoft-engineer-just-ported-a-macos-feature-over-to-windows-with-an-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/380054\/","title":{"rendered":"A Microsoft engineer just ported a macOS feature over to Windows with an app"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>                    Summary<\/p>\n<p>                                        A Microsoft engineer built PeekDesktop to add a macOS-style click-to-reveal desktop to Windows.<\/p>\n<p>                                        The app offers four reveal modes: native Show Desktop, Classic Minimize, Fly Away, and Virtual Desktop.<\/p>\n<p>                                        Download releases from the PeekDesktop GitHub page to try it.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, when Microsoft doesn&#8217;t add a feature to Windows 10 or 11, the userbase will make it themselves. One could even argue that Windows users are better developers for the OS than Microsoft itself. However, sometimes a Microsoft engineer will make an app to fix an issue they&#8217;ve been encountering and release it for everyone to use, which is like the ultimate middle-ground between a user-made app and an official Windows addition.<\/p>\n<p>Such is the case with PeekDesktop, an app developed by someone who works at Microsoft and released as a standalone app instead of a core Windows feature. Best of all, the app actually takes a handy feature from macOS&#8217;s book and adds it to Windows, meaning you can tap into the power of fast desktop peeking without needing to move to Apple&#8217;s ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>        <img width=\"440\" height=\"364\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A Windows 11 laptop running File Explorer\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/windows-11-file-explorer-android.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/windows-11-file-explorer-android.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    Related<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/i-tried-quicklook-for-windows-and-now-i-wont-give-it-up\/\" title=\"I tried QuickLook for Windows, and now I won&#039;t give it up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tI tried QuickLook for Windows, and now I won&#8217;t give it up<br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"display-card-excerpt\">Preview files with lightning-fast speeds<\/p>\n<p>            It&#8217;s not an officially-supported app, but it&#8217;s still great<\/p>\n<p>        <img width=\"825\" height=\"550\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"peekdesktop-demo anim\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/peekdesktop-demo-anim.gif\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/peekdesktop-demo-anim.gif\" class=\"img-brightness-opt-out\"\/><br \/>\n        Credit:\u00a0Scott Hanselman<\/p>\n<p>As spotted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.windowslatest.com\/2026\/04\/15\/microsofts-vp-brings-macos-style-click-to-reveal-desktop-feature-to-windows-with-new-tool\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Windows Latest<\/a>, PeekDesktop was the idea and invention of the VP and Member of Technical Staff at Microsoft, Scott Hanselman. If you&#8217;ve used macOS Sonoma before, you&#8217;ll know of the &#8220;click wallpaper to reveal desktop&#8221; feature, which lets you quickly hide all open windows by clicking on your desktop. It&#8217;s very handy for opening shortcuts and moving files without needing to dig through your open windows. Once you&#8217;re done, clicking the desktop a second time reveals all the windows again.<\/p>\n<p>However, PeekDesktop actually comes with four different methods of showing the desktop:<\/p>\n<p>                                        Native Show Desktop (Explorer) \u2014 the default and recommended mode<\/p>\n<p>                                        Classic Minimize \u2014 minimizes and restores tracked windows<\/p>\n<p>                                        Fly Away (Experimental) \u2014 animates windows offscreen before restoring them<\/p>\n<p>                                        Virtual Desktop (Experimental) \u2014 briefly switches to an empty shell desktop for a surprisingly convincing reveal effect<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to give this app a spin, be sure to pop over to the PeekDesktop GitHub page and click the version number under &#8220;releases&#8221; on the right sidebar. That will take you to the download page for the latest version of the app.<\/p>\n<p>        <img width=\"440\" height=\"364\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"M3 MacBook Air on a table \" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/macbook-air-m3-xda-xda-review01892.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/macbook-air-m3-xda-xda-review01892.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    Related<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/i-use-these-4-apps-to-bring-my-favorite-mac-features-to-windows\/\" title=\"I use these 4 apps to bring my favorite Mac features to Windows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tI use these 4 apps to bring my favorite Mac features to Windows<br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"display-card-excerpt\">Let&#8217;s make Windows even better<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary A Microsoft engineer built PeekDesktop to add a macOS-style click-to-reveal desktop to Windows. The app offers four&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-380054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}