How to Use Spaces on Mac to Organise Your Desktops

If you work on a MacBook with a small screen, or even if you have a large external monitor but keep dozens of apps open simultaneously, your desktop can quickly become an unmanageable mess of overlapping windows. Apple’s solution to this problem is a feature called Spaces, which is integrated directly into Mission Control.

Spaces allows you to create multiple, separate virtual desktops. You can assign specific applications to specific Spaces — for example, dedicating one Space entirely to your web browser and email, another to your video editing software, and a third to your music and messaging apps. This completely eliminates window clutter and allows you to focus on one task at a time.

How to Access Mission Control and Create a New Space

To use Spaces, you first need to open Mission Control. There are several ways to do this on a Mac:

• Trackpad Gesture: Swipe up with three (or four) fingers on your trackpad.
• Keyboard Shortcut: Press the Mission Control key (F3), or press Control + Up Arrow.
• Magic Mouse: Double-tap (don’t click, just tap) with two fingers.

When Mission Control opens, all your currently open windows will shrink and arrange themselves so you can see them all at once. At the very top of the screen, you will see a bar (or the word “Desktop”). This is the Spaces bar.

To create a new Space:

1. Move your cursor to the top-right corner of the screen.
2. Click the Plus (+) button that appears.
3. A new thumbnail labelled “Desktop 2” will appear in the Spaces bar. You can create up to 16 distinct Spaces.

How to Switch Between Spaces

Once you have multiple Spaces created, switching between them is incredibly fast:

• Trackpad Gesture: Swipe left or right with three (or four) fingers.
• Keyboard Shortcut: Press Control + Left Arrow or Control + Right Arrow.
• Magic Mouse: Swipe left or right with two fingers.
• Alternatively, open Mission Control (F3) and click the thumbnail of the Space you want to jump to.

Moving Windows Between Spaces

To organise your workspace, you need to move your open applications into your newly created Spaces.

Method 1: Drag and Drop in Mission Control

1. Open Mission Control.
2. Click and hold any shrunk window.
3. Drag it up into the thumbnail of the target Space in the top bar.
4. Release the mouse.

Method 2: Dragging Across the Screen Edge

1. Click and hold the title bar of a window on your current desktop.
2. Drag it firmly all the way to the left or right edge of your screen and hold it there for a second.
3. macOS will automatically slide you into the adjacent Space, where you can drop the window.

Assigning Apps to Specific Spaces Permanently

If you have a strict workflow — for instance, you always want Safari to open in Desktop 1 and Slack to always open in Desktop 2 — you can permanently assign apps to specific Spaces.

1. Switch to the Space where you want the app to live.
2. Open the application.
3. Right-click (or Control-click) the application’s icon in the Dock at the bottom of your screen.
4. Hover over Options.
5. Under the “Assign To” section, select This Desktop.

Now, whenever you click that app in the Dock, macOS will automatically swoop you over to its assigned Space, ensuring your layout remains perfectly organised every time you restart your Mac.

How to Delete a Space

If you no longer need a virtual desktop:

1. Open Mission Control.
2. Hover your cursor over the thumbnail of the Space you want to delete in the top bar.
3. A small X button will appear in the top-left corner of the thumbnail. Click it.

Note: Deleting a Space does not close or delete the applications that were inside it. Any open windows in that Space will simply be moved to the nearest adjacent Space automatically.

Stopping macOS from Automatically Rearranging Spaces

By default, macOS tries to be helpful by automatically rearranging your Spaces based on which ones you have used most recently. This is highly frustrating if you rely on muscle memory to swipe between specific workflows.

To stop this behaviour:

1. Open System Settings.
2. Navigate to Desktop & Dock.
3. Scroll down to the Mission Control section.
4. Turn Off the toggle for Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use.

Your virtual desktops will now remain exactly in the order you created them, giving you complete, predictable control over your multi-desktop environment.