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Comment by newdee | Hacker News Reader

> Every single running UI app needs a window.

I’m sorry, but this is false. The default/conventional behaviour is for apps to keep running even if all their windows are closed.

There’s actually a toggle for this behaviour on the app delegate.[0]

You may be thinking about LSUIElement, which is loosely related, but doesn’t mandate that windowless apps must quit. [1]

0: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsapplicati...

1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/in...

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Apologies, I was not clear. Obviously in MacOS an app can be open without a window. My question is why?

What is the point of having for example Word or Safari running without a window? If they want to run a background task that requires some user interaction (eg outlook checking email and calendar), the menubar is the perfect place for it.

In the past the argument was that people want their apps warm started so that they open faster. But this is a moot point in 2025 with SSDs of pulling 5gb/s and tons of ram that allow for ample intelligent caching.

One reason is to be able to close the last window of an app without quitting it. Always bugged me how on windows, if I closed, say, the only word doc I had open, I had to relaunch word again (with all the loading time that that entailed) just to open a new doc. On a Mac you can close windows without worrying that you're also going to quit the app (except for apps that only support one window, although I do think it’s silly that every app doesn't just support multiple windows).

Why the app has to be scrubbed from memory immediately after you close the last window? We are not in the times with 512kb of RAM memory. This is not something that the user should have to worry about today.

This is the simplest caching scenario I can think of.

The menu bar? God no. Cluttered enough.

It’s not like it’s hard to quit an app. You push Apple-Q for the app, Apple-W for a window.

What’s the point in having a window if it doesn’t need it. Do I need to check if this is the last window so I don’t lose my download, stop my render, etc. These things bite me on Windows. There is not the one way.

Precisely. It’s not really about system performance anymore, which just leaves the workflow benefits once you get used to it. As you point out, when using keyboard shortcuts thoroughly, the WM behaviours just make sense.

Command-Tab, Tab to select the app for foreground, Command-N for a new window. Combined with Command-Space for Spotlight (or Alfred/Raycast) it’s all very quick and seamless.

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