In Take Control of Windows, I wrote about Mission Control and how to use it to organize and switch among windows on the screen. In that post, I briefly mentioned the ability to also segregate windows in separate spaces, but provided no instruction to do so.

macOS offers Spaces as a way to declutter the screen, enabling you to create multiple Desktops on which windows are stacked.

You can choose for the normal windows of each application to open on a specific desktop or be present on all desktops. Full-screen windows always occupy a single space unto themselves and split-screen windows also operate in full-screen mode.

Make Space

To add a desktop space, invoke Mission Control and click the ＋ in the top corner. To move a given window to another desktop, just drag it there while in Mission Control.

Or, outside Mission Control, you can drag a window to the right or left edge of the screen and have it jump from one space to the next. Note: This doesn’t work when Universal Control is enabled.

Navigate Spaces

To navigate among desktops, you can use Mission Control, swipe gestures on an Apple input device, or keyboard shortcuts. To use Mission Control, simply click the desired desktop or full-screen window at the top of the screen.

Using an Apple Magic Mouse, you can switch spaces by swiping left/right with two fingers. On a Magic Trackpad, swipe with three fingers (or four if you prefer). Settings for these gestures are in each device’s System Settings pane under More Gestures. (The setting is called Swipe between full-screen applications, but it applies to all spaces.)

If you prefer to use the keyboard, there are shortcut options to move left or right a space and to switch to each specific numbered desktop. You can view/customize these shortcuts in System Settings/Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control.

Additionally, if you use the Application Switcher to switch to a specific application and the application is assigned to a space (or all of its windows are in a single space), you’ll reach that space and the application’s windows will move to the front. More on assigning applications to spaces below…

Assign Windows

To indicate that a given application’s windows should always open in a specific space, first navigate to the desired space. Then, right-click (or Control+click) the application’s icon on the Dock, choose Options, and click This Desktop.

To assign an application’s windows to all spaces so they are visible on any desktop, choose All Desktops from the Options submenu.

If you use Arc as your web browser, note that Little Arc windows will still open in the space where you invoke them, including atop full-screen applications. The only exception to this is when the space in question contains two windows in split-screen view.

Delete Spaces

To delete a space, go to Mission Control, mouse up to the top of the screen, hover over the unwanted space for at least a second, and click the 🅧 that appears in its top left corner. Or, to force an 🅧 to appear on all available desktops, hold Option.

I have been using Spaces for many years to segregate my applications, keep my desktops less cluttered, and increase my productivity. I keep Mail, Fantastical, Reeder, and Music in Full Screen mode and have four desktops where I organize the rest of my applications. Some of these are assigned to a specific desktop and a few are permitted on all.

Notably, for a couple years, I’ve experienced a bug where macOS does not respect the All Desktops assignment after restarting my Mac. For applications in this category, I find that I must quit and reopen each app (or toggle its assignment to None and back to All Desktops) to return it to the expected behavior.

As the Finder is one such application, my workaround has been to relaunch it. This is possible from the Force Quit window or by holding Option while right-clicking the Finder’s Dock icon. I’ve submitted feedback to Apple regarding this frustrating bug.