The Cluttered Overview
macOS utilizes Mission Control (activated by swiping up with three fingers or pressing F3) to give you a bird’s-eye view of all your open windows. By default, macOS tries to organize this view by automatically grouping windows belonging to the same application into tight clusters. For example, if you have five Safari windows open, they will be stacked together in one area of the screen. While this sounds organized, if you have dozens of small windows open across many apps, it often results in overlapping thumbnails where you cannot distinguish one specific document from another, defeating the purpose of the overview.
Ungrouping Mission Control
To spread your windows out evenly and stop macOS from automatically grouping them by application in Mission Control, you must disable the grouping preference.
Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, scroll down and click on Desktop & Dock. In the main right-hand panel, scroll down until you reach the “Mission Control” section. Look for the toggle switch explicitly labelled Group windows by application. By default, this is turned on. Click the toggle to turn it Off. The next time you trigger Mission Control, every single open window will be treated as an independent entity and spread out across your screen, making it much easier to spot a specific document at a glance.