Some of you know that I've been using 10.11 less than a year. In that time, I'm still finding elements of the OS that are new to me or that I haven't been able to change to my satisfaction.

Which brings me to: maximize window. When you click on the green dot in the upper left corner of a window, the window should fill the screen. Except now it takes the menu bar with it. Well, I like the menu bar. I use it. ESC key doesn't return you to normal either.

Is there a way to maximize a window without vanishing the menu bar?

Double-click the window's title bar/tool bar. Double-clicking a second time returns the window to its previous state.

Thanks.

That doesn't work for me in Mojave; should it?

I just checked and neither does it seem to work in High Sierra. I had to quit Safari and then re-open it.

Please clarify that, i.e. what happened when you re-opened Safari? Did it then work?

It doesn't work for me under any circumstances.

I'm on High Sierra. If I click the green button (Firefox window) the window goes to full screen. Then, if I raise the cursor to the very top edge of the screen, the menu bar reappears and I can click the green button again, which returns the window to its original size.

I see that in Mojave, and it's expected, but deniro doesn't want that.

He wants the window to go full screen except for the menu bar as it used to do.

I'm running High Sierra 10.13.6, and this behavior works for me across all apps, or at least Safari, Mail, Maps, Activity Monitor, TextEdit, and Keychain Access (all the apps I have open at the moment).

System Preferences -> Dock -> put a check in the Double-click a window's title bar to [zoom or minimize] checkbox.

I took a peek and that’s how my Dock was set up….perhaps a default setting as I’ve never goofed with the Dock preferences. Although that didn’t work for me, freelance’s method did the trick.


All’s well that ends well.

Thanks; that works.

Let's say I'm in Firefox. I grab a corner of the window and shrink the window in half. I click the green light. The window maximizes, but the menu bar disappears. If I double click the Firefox window, it minimizes to the dock.

I'm trying to lock the menu bar in place so it never disappears.

The pref referenced by dkmarsh is your answer: double-clicking on a window's title bar expands it while leaving the menu bar intact.

I've tried it in both Safari and Firefox, and it works.

Unless you manually resize the window to full-screen (keeping the menu bar visible) by dragging a corner, I don't think you can prevent the menu bar from disappearing; it's a "feature" of full-screen mode.

Even if the menu bar disappears, moving the cursor to where it was causes it to pop down. There are also apps that assist with resizing and repositioning windows that could keep the menu bar visible.

dkmarsh's referenced pref is different than full-screen mode and fulfills deniro's purpose.

The green button by definition activates full screen mode and by definition the menu bar in full screen mode only appears when you move the cursor to the top of your screen. This is touted as a "feature" of full screen mode because it allows the app to use every available pixel on the screen for its display. By-the-way you might give full screen mode an honest try. Once you become accustomed to it, and learn to switch between full screen apps using App Switcher (programmable on your mouse) or a three finger swipe on the trackpad it is really pretty useful. I find it particularly useful on my 13" Macbook Pro when it is not connected to the 27" Thunderbolt Display.

Short of reverting to an earlier version of macOS the best (only?) alternative is the "zoom" feature suggested by DK. It is not the same as full screen and works differently in different apps but it does work reliably.