Everyone who is forced to use Microsoft Teams on a Mac knows this extremly annoying behaviour: You want to cmd+tab to Teams but instead of bringing the Teams window to the front, an invisible Teams window is activated. The only way to get to Teams is to manually switch to the right Space (virtual desktop) and then cmd+tab to Teams or click to Teams Dock icon multiple times.
According to the internet™, a fix is to disable Teams own notifications and use system notifications instead. When cmd+tabbing to Teams this notification window is activated instead of the actual Teams window, so the fix sounds plausible. But no, this only works until the next wakeup from sleep or restart.
The frustating aspect of this bug is that Microsoft knows about it for years and choses to not do anything, although they easily could. Outlook can also use its own notification system and cmd+tab works just fine. Why not Teams?
Anyway … enough ranting. The bug can be “fixed” by automating the manual steps:
Better Touch Tool is a very helpful little app to redefine the default behaviour of input devices on Macs. It can be programmed to switch to the Space that has the Teams window and bring it to the front when Teams is activated by cmd+tab. The trick is to set up an “other trigger” when Teams is activated and toggle the Menu Bar action “Bring all to front”.
Step by step guide for Better Touch Tool:
- Select “other triggers” in the drop-down menu at the top
- Add a new trigger
- Select trigger “Specific App Did Activate” and choose Teams
- Add action “Trigger Menubar Menu-Item”
- The command to be executed is “
Window;(8)” whatever the window menu item is named in your language. For me, its “Fenster;(8)“.
The “8” refers to the eighth element in the “Window” menu which is “bring all to front” (or in German “Alles in den Vordergrund”).
That’s it! No cmd+tab also works for Teams just like it does for every other app.