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The trick to clearing a cluttered Windows 10 workspace

Come on, everybody, let's do the Aero Shake!

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
Matt Elliott
Matt Elliott/CNET

By lunchtime each day, open window upon open window litters my desktop workspace. I'm sure you feel my pain. Thankfully, there is a way to get rid of the clutter and focus on the task (and window) at hand that doesn't involve going around and clicking the tiny minimize button on each and every window you want to clear from your desktop. Known as the Aero Shake, this simple yet effective maneuver has been around since the days of Windows 7 , long before Windows 10 Spring 2018 Update and Focus Assist, but it's still just as handy today.

Aero Shake

Simply click and hold on the title bar of the window that you want to remain on your crowded desktop and give it a little wiggle. While you wiggle, the other windows on your desktop will magically be minimized, providing you with a clean slate on which to focus and work.

And should you begin to feel lonely with just a single window on your suddenly barren desktop, perform the Aero Shake again and all of the windows that you shook away will return.

Read more: 6 display settings you should be using in Windows 10