How do I get the handles of all open figures in MATLAB

matlab matlab-figure figures
Liz picture Liz · Dec 27, 2010 · Viewed 71.9k times · Source

I have nine open figures in matlab (generated by another function) and I want to print them all to file. Does anyone know how to grab the handles of all open figures in MATLAB?

I know about gcf but it doesn't seem to do what I want.

Answer

gnovice picture gnovice · Dec 27, 2010

There are a few ways to do this. One way to do this is to get all the children of the root object (represented in prior versions by the handle 0):

figHandles = get(groot, 'Children');  % Since version R2014b
figHandles = get(0, 'Children');      % Earlier versions

Or you could use the function findobj:

figHandles = findobj('Type', 'figure');

If any of the figures have hidden handles, you can instead use the function findall:

figHandles = findall(groot, 'Type', 'figure');  % Since version R2014b
figHandles = findall(0, 'Type', 'figure');      % Earlier versions

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