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> I've used Mac for years, and still don't know what the yellow button does.

Minimize. That’s what the yellow button does. It’s as simple as clicking it once.

Kind of unrelated to the actual discussion but I just realised that I never minimize things on mac. I know what the yellow bubble does, never once clicked it, neither used the shortcut whatever it is.

Is this common? I used it on windows but for years now, I have a ton of windows on top of each other or I just cmd+w my way out of one.

Maybe this is the idiomatic way and I’m not an outlier though. Is it?

I've been using Macs since 1984 and I almost never minimize a window. I find that I generally don't need to since I can maximize a window properly. In macOS the Maximize function (which you need to use option to get from the green button) makes the window the largest size that makes sense for the content and fits on the screen. On Windows, the maximize button in MDI windows makes the window essentially full-screen which I personally never want. I can have multiple maximized windows on macOS and access them all by either just clicking between them or using Cmd-`. I have no need to minimize unless a window's maximized size is essentially full-screen.

or, mousing over it and seeing the little minimize line.

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