How to resize a window on your Mac’s screen that’s too big to drag

Thank you so much, been banging my head over this and yet it was RIGHT in front of my eyes. Bless you!

I’m having an issue with a GarageBand window. Not GarageBand itself, but I’m trying to edit a Hybrid Basic instrument and the editing window that appears is too long to fit the screen. This window also only has the red (close) button. No yellow or green.

Holy christ, hahah I had iTunes all jacked up and un-resizable, so glad I found this page. You might want to update the original text to indicate the OPTION Click on the green “+” to fit iTunes to the screen.

Thanks!!

I have the same problem as Julia and Chase.
The software I’m using opens a window that is to large. When I click the green button it just fits to the bottom of the screen, not showing the tools that are off the screen. I’m using the higher resolution and tried to gather windows too.

THANK YOU!!! Googling your response was quicker than MAC support page!!! You saved my sanity!!!!!!! LOL

Hi thanks for the help, it worked for me.

However just a note – in photoshop its not that obvious that this actually works.

solution: press the (+) button then move the mouse to the bottom right and even though you can’t see the corner the ‘resize’ cursor will appear.

Hope this helps a few people

Thanks

Hi, i don’t know what to do. I have a mini mac conect to EPSON projector, it work fine for a wile and now the desktop is oversize. I need to move the mouse left to right to be able to see all the desk top. I try to change screen resolution, the green thing.. etc. it affect only the box or window not the desktop size. any idea? thanks

WOW. Such a great trick! I have so much trouble with this all the time, and it’s such an easy fix!

Thank you for the quick & easy way to resize your screen!

Exactly, windows with the green + button are obvious but the real problem are those with no buttons except for the close x button.

Anyone solved that???? I’m working with the Kontakt 5 sampler in Logic and i can only see half the window on my 13″ macbook.

THANK YOU!

That’s been driving me crazy for a while. And thank you Google!

In moving from a large screen external display to the screen on my Macbook pro, the left and right hand sides of the screen are cut off e.g. on the left there is no “back” control arrow, on the right, the scroll up/down bar is gone. How do I resize to fit the Mac Bookpro screen

Thanks for the simple solution to my problem !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My “save” window is too low on the screen to access the “resize” area in the lower right corner. As a result, I can barely see the “new folder” “cancel” and “save” buttons. Unfortunately, there is no red-yellow-green button display in the upper left corner to resize the window to my display. How can I resize the save window without changing the resolution on my display (I like it the way it is.)

The iTunes screen is so large, that the green button doesn’t even show. Also, the window seems to be frozen, so I cant move it to get the colored buttons into view. The only way I can close iTunes is to hit cmd=Q. Help

Ok, so what if the app doesn’t HAVE a green resize button, or its not highlighted?????????? I am trying to do this with NI Kontakt Player, and the only button that shows is the minimize.

Did anyone ever find an answer to the Garage Band problem? It appears to be impossible to resize the window and all the main controls are unreachable at the bottom. I’ve seen plenty of mention of the problem elsewhere, but so far no solution.

Two years later on, and this is still the only place I could find that helped me. A belated thanks to Bill for the ESC Key option! I’m going to add this message in case it helps someone else searching typical key words to find the solution.

Like Emma and David, I had a “cannot send message using the server” error window in Mail that was too big. I could not resize it. “Try later” and “Cancel” and “Edit” were below the visible screen. The green button or Zoom enlarged the whole screen, and yellow minimized it, but the error message stayed proportional and I still could not close or delete it.

But hitting the ESC key triggers the “Edit This Message” choice, and the error message window goes away, and I can fix the problem. YAY!

“Clicking the green zoom (+) button on the toolbar of any window will automatically resize it.

This is impossible. The window that TOTALLY fills my computer screen has no “green zoom button” in sight.

This is immensely frustrating. I left the computer for a short while, came back and found that the safari window covers the entire screen — no control-icons or colored buttons or words (“View,” etc) at the top of my screen at all.

Please help.