Spaces on a Mac: using multiple desktops well

Spaces are separate desktops. Each holds its own windows, and you slide between them. Used well, they keep work and everything else apart.

The basics

1. Open Mission Control and click the plus at the top right to add a Space.
2. Drag a window onto a Space at the top to move it there.
3. Switch with ⌃ ← and ⌃ →, or swipe sideways with three or four fingers.
4. For direct jumps, turn on Switch to Desktop 1, 2 and so on in Keyboard Shortcuts, Mission Control, then press ⌃ and a number.

Habits that help

• One Space per kind of work: writing, meetings, personal.
• Turn off Automatically rearrange Spaces so their order stays put.
• Right click an app in the Dock, Options, Assign To, to open it on one Space always.

Where Spaces stop

Inside each Space, windows still overlap. Spaces split your mess into several smaller messes.

A strip in every Space

ClutterFreeMac gives each Space its own strip, so every desktop is a tidy row of windows. Spaces keep your contexts apart; the strip keeps each context in order. If macOS uses the same number of fingers for switching Spaces, Settings shows how to give each gesture its own.