The Disorienting Workflow
macOS utilizes “Mission Control” and virtual desktops (called “Spaces”) to help you organize your open windows. By default, Apple tries to be helpful by automatically rearranging the physical order of these Spaces based on your recent activity. For example, if you have your email client open on Space 4, but you switch to it frequently, macOS will secretly slide it over and make it Space 2. While intended to save time, this dynamic shifting completely destroys muscle memory. Power users who assign specific tasks to specific desktops rely on those Spaces remaining exactly where they were created, making the auto-rearrange feature incredibly disorienting.
Locking the Desktop Order
To restore sanity to your workflow and ensure that your virtual desktops always remain in the exact numerical order you assigned them, you must disable the automatic rearrangement feature.
Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings (or System Preferences on older versions). Scroll down the left-hand navigation sidebar and click on Desktop & Dock. On the right-hand panel, scroll down until you reach the section titled “Mission Control.” Look for the specific toggle switch labelled Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use. Click this toggle to turn it Off. The change takes effect immediately. From this moment forward, macOS will respect your manual organization. Space 1 will always remain Space 1, and Space 4 will always remain Space 4, regardless of how often you interact with the applications running within them.