Mission Control 101: How to Use Multiple Desktops on a Mac
- Justin Pot
@jhpot
- Updated
Do you open a lot of windows on your Mac? Do you ever have trouble keeping track of them all? Then you need to know about Mission Control, which shows you all of your currently open windows, then gives you ways to organize them.
Mission Control is one of those Mac features that’s easy to ignore but makes everything better once you learn about it, mostly because of the multiple desktops feature. Master using those, and the quick ways to switch between them, and you’ll wonder how you ever used your Mac any other way.
Why Do I Need More Desktops?
Screen space is a limited resource for computer users. To increase the workspace, you can either plug in a second monitor or use a virtual desktop. Virtual desktops expand the space available for application windows by allowing you to switch between workspaces.
Here are some examples to show you the different organization strategies for using multiple desktops:
- By Task: You have one desktop for each project. For example, each desktop could contain a code editor, testing, and documentation related to its project.
- By Subtask: You work on a single project and devote one desktop to each task, like editing, with a second desktop for testing, and a third for documentation.
- Primary/Secondary: Use one desktop for work, a second for email, and a third for web browsing.
- By Application: You devote software groups to a desktop by type rather than by task.
What application you choose in each desktop is up to you. Virtual desktops provide an excellent organizational aid by helping you stay focussed on a task while reducing the need to move windows constantly.
Using Mission Control and Desktop Spaces
Mission Control offers a bird’s eye view of your open Mac windows, full-screen apps, split-view apps, and desktop spaces. To access Mission Control, do any of the following:
- Swipe up with four fingers from the trackpad.
- Double-tap the Magic Mouse with two fingers.
- Press the F3 button on the keyboard.
- Launch Mission Control from Spotlight.
The ribbon at the top of the screen lists the desktop spaces. In the screenshot, you’ll see four spaces, numbered Desktop 1 to Desktop 4. You can rearrange the order of the spaces by dragging and dropping them. As you do so, it re-numbers the desktops accordingly.
How to Create and Navigate Desktop Spaces
Hover your pointer to the far-right edge of the ribbon, then click the plus [+] sign to create a new desktop space. It’s possible to create up to 16 spaces, though you won’t need that many unless you’re working on a complicated project.
Move your pointer over the desktop, then click the X located in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail to remove a desktop. You can navigate between desktops using three-finger horizontal swipes on a trackpad or Control + Arrow keys on a keyboard.
How to Move a Window to Another Desktop Space
Open Mission Control. Hover your pointer over an application window [it’ll get highlighted with a blue border], then drag-and-drop the window to your desired desktop space. Or, grab the window by its title bar and press the Control + Arrow keys to move the window left or right.
137 Replies
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Mace
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:36 UTC
I've honestly never seen much use for them, either. Switching windows isn't that big of a deal.
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Ghost Chili
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:37 UTC
I prefer multiple monitors so they remain in view.
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Mace
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:40 UTC
Organization? Different apps on different desktops. If my account was a domain admin account, I'd use a different desktop for AD [Hyena] or other admin tasks. Since my domain admin account is separate, I just RDP into a Win 7 VM I have set up.
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Pure Capsaicin
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:42 UTC
If you like to have a lot of stuff open at once it can be nice. Email full screen, browser full screen, Excel full screen. Or two apps, each taking half screen. With more than one Desktop you can have all of that and easily flip between them.
I definitely think having multiple monitors is better, though.
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Cayenne
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:43 UTC
Ross42. wrote:
I've honestly never seen much use for them, either. Switching windows isn't that big of a deal.
Exactly. I just use alt tab or windows key tab.
starg33ker wrote:
I prefer multiple monitors so they remain in view.
Same, I have three monitors at home and two at work.
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Cayenne
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:44 UTC
I guess organization is nice but it really does not seem like that big of a deal to me.
Bud G. wrote:
Organization? Different apps on different desktops. If my account was a domain admin account, I'd use a different desktop for AD [Hyena] or other admin tasks. Since my domain admin account is separate, I just RDP into a Win 7 VM I have set up.
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Mace
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:45 UTC
I don't see the point, either
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Cayenne
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:45 UTC
LarryG. wrote:
If you like to have a lot of stuff open at once it can be nice. Email full screen, browser full screen, Excel full screen. Or two apps, each taking half screen. With more than one Desktop you can have all of that and easily flip between them.
I definitely think having multiple monitors is better, though.
So I guess it is mostly meant for computers with one monitor or a laptop.
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Pure Capsaicin
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:51 UTC
I know some people that like having a lot of Desktop arrangements. One will have icons arranged for one thing, another will have a bunch of document links, another a bunch of Internet shortcuts, etc... I don't like doing things that way, but they do. One guy I know had some stock ticker software that he had multiple windows for. He wanted them arranged a certain way and easily visible, but he had other stuff going on too. He had 3 monitors, but it wasn't enough, so he used alternate Desktops to handle the rest.Draco8573 wrote:
LarryG. wrote:
If you like to have a lot of stuff open at once it can be nice. Email full screen, browser full screen, Excel full screen. Or two apps, each taking half screen. With more than one Desktop you can have all of that and easily flip between them.
I definitely think having multiple monitors is better, though.
So I guess it is mostly meant for computers with one monitor or a laptop.
I don't need it, but others seem to like it. No reason for me to care, right?
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Cayenne
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 16:55 UTC
LarryG. wrote:
I don't need it, but others seem to like it. No reason for me to care, right?
I agree there, I was just wondering if there was some secret as to why people like it that I was unaware of.
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Mace
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 17:15 UTC
Different approach for different people and different workstyles.
Multiple physical monitors is good, yet some can only work with one big monitor. Each their own....
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Tabasco
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 17:55 UTC
I have several users who use this for specific tasks. You can always try it yourself to see if it may be helpful for you: //technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc817881.aspx
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Thai Pepper
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:15 UTC
JPSL Consulting is an IT service provider.
Works wonders for my OCD and lets me categorize my apps together.
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Thai Pepper
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:19 UTC
Draco8573 wrote:
Ross42. wrote:
I've honestly never seen much use for them, either. Switching windows isn't that big of a deal.
Exactly. I just use alt tab or windows key tab.
starg33ker wrote:
I prefer multiple monitors so they remain in view.
Same, I have three monitors at home and two at work.
Personally, I like multiple monitors as well. I keep 2 open for real time monitoring of networks. And primary monitor for working on. When working on my degree, multiple desktops helped out a lot. I had research papers open in 1 desktop and my research paper that I was writing in the primary desktop.
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Thai Pepper
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:23 UTC
I don't get it either. they say it's to reduce the clutter, but isn't that why we are able to minimize and restore windows and programs?
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Habanero
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:25 UTC
On a Windows machine hitting alt tab if I have a bunch of stuff open is time consuming. On my Mac even though I can click, using the trackpad isn't the fastest thing in the whole world but swiping my 4 fingers to one side is. Don't have the ability to use multiple desktops so I like it.
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Chipotle
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:31 UTC
The only reason I've ever used multi-desktop was when I was in a penetration testing Linux distro. I'd switch between terminals so I knew what one was doing what action and to mentally keep me sane when I had 20+ terminals open along with all the other tools that I'd use. But other than organization , I don't really ever use them nor do I see a reason for them. But havingthat added feature is pretty cool in my honest opinion.
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Serrano
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:32 UTC
I don't think I've ever used multiple desktops ... seems more tedious than useful/helpful ...
Definitely love having multiple monitors though.
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Datil
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:33 UTC
It's an interesting idea, and there were a few times I've wanted to really give it a try, but Windows just doesn't have a good implementation of it. When I've used it in Linux, it worked really well, but more often than not, I'd just find myself sticking to one window.
I'm not really sure how that would work with multiple monitors, or if it would add any benefit at all. Once I went to multiple monitors, though, I can't really see myself going back.
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Chipotle
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:35 UTC
Funny I always wondered why windows did NOT have it. I could not live without virtual desktop even with multiple monitor.
It's about organization, knowing where your "things" are. I have 2 monitor and each monitor have 2 rows of 5 virtual desktop. Each monitor are independent, I can have M.1 on Desktop 2 row 1 and M.2 on desktop 1 row 2. What I mean by this is that if I change virtual desktop on one monitor it does not affect the other.
My web browser can always be found by pressing shift+f2 M1R2D2 [monitor 1 row 2 desktop 2] It start automatically at every boot in that location. I run emacs on M1R1D1 & M2R1D1 and they share the same buffers. They start auto at boot. I have my remote access tools for my servers and workstation in case of support always on M2R1D5, they all start auto at boot.
While I work on project X in emacs I am using both desktop M1R1D1 & M2R1D1, then something comes up and I need to work on some other files for another project, I don't want to create pollution in my emacs buffer for what I'm working on in project X, it will take time to clean up after I want to come back to X, I swtich to M*R1D2 and start another emacs for that work flow. When this task is done I just kill that emacs and come back to my other desktop.
As you can see I do not switch windows. All my windows are layed out according to the work needing to be done and I switch desktop [Could be more accurate in my case to say workspace]
Once you remove the need for the mouse to move around, this becomes very efficient, I move the focus on each monitor with alt+shift+arrow. I get to any of 5 desktop on r1 with Fkeys and on row 2 with shift+FKeys
Edit: Typo & added some details.
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Thai Pepper
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:41 UTC
Well tabbing through multiple windows and virtual desktops is fun. Except I have three monitors. one for email, one for remote and one for researching and purchasing.
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Thai Pepper
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:42 UTC
I think its a personal preference thing. I like have multiple monitors because if I'm doing something extensive I like to have a document open with the steps I need to do on one and an RDP session to the server I'm working on the other. Could I use Alt+Tab, sure I could but since we have the extra monitor around I would prefer using it.
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Datil
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:45 UTC
I use multiple monitors and multiple desktops. I use it to organize different tasks that I am working on simultaneously.
Example:
- Desktop #1: Email up on one monitor and terminal multiplexer up on my second monitor with connections to whatever my primary focus/project for the day is.
- Desktop #2: Web browser up with Nagios Web GUI displayed. Second monitor terminal multiplexer up with connections to new hosts that are getting NRPE installation/configuration, as well as a connection to the Nagios Monitoring Server.
- Desktop #3: Redmine bug tracker up on Monitor 1 with a description of an issue with a public facing website and terminal multiplexer up on Monitor #2 connected to VPS-based webserver troubleshooting issue.
- Desktop #4: Tiddlywiki documentation wiki up in browser on Monitor #1 and terminal multiplexer up on monitor 2 with connections to my test network as well as a testing environment experimenting with porting current services to Docker containers. I document findings/steps/configurations in a new wiki entry as I go along.
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Chipotle
OP
Jun 15, 2015 at 18:46 UTC
I run multiple desktops with multiple monitors. I often setup desktops for different "jobs".
I have one desktop that I work in 50% of the time with shortcuts to documents, applications, and tools that I access daily.
I have another desktop that I use when I am giving a presentation or training, it very minimalistic.
Still another is when I am troubleshooting, I have all of the relevant tools at my fingertips for troubleshooting anything from hardware to network.
Overall it allows me to organize the desktop for quick access to the tools that are most relevant at that moment for me. No I don't NEED to do this, however I like the organization and I don't have to shift my train of thought to search for things.
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