How do I open mission control to see your spaces?

Swipe upward with three fingers on your MacBook trackpad, or press the Mission Control key on your keyboard. At the top of the screen, you will see a strip showing your current Spaces. If you have only one, it appears as a single thumbnail there. You will also see a small plus (+) button at the far right of that strip.

How do I create a new space?

While in Mission Control, click the plus (+) button in the top-right corner. A new empty Space appears in the top strip. You can create as many Spaces as you like — most people find two to four Spaces to be a comfortable number. Click on the new Space thumbnail to switch to it immediately.

How do I switch between spaces?

Swipe left or right with three fingers on your trackpad to move between Spaces. You can also hold the Control key and press the Left or Right Arrow to switch. Each Space retains its own windows — what you leave open in Space 1 stays there while you work in Space 2.

How do I move an app to a specific space?

Open Mission Control and find the window you want to move in the lower area. Click and drag that window up to the Space thumbnail where you want it to live. Release the mouse button, and the window moves to that Space. You can also right-click an app's icon in the Dock, go to "Options," and choose "Assign to" a specific Space so it always opens there.

How do I delete a space you no longer need?

Open Mission Control and hover your mouse over the Space thumbnail you want to remove. A small X button appears in the top-left corner of that thumbnail. Click the X to delete the Space. Any open windows in that Space move to the neighboring Space automatically — they are not closed or lost.

TekSure — Free Tech Help for Beginners & Seniors

Spaces is a macOS feature that lets you create multiple separate virtual desktops — called Spaces — on your Mac. Each Space has its own set of open windows and apps, so you can keep different types of work completely separate without everything piling up on a single desktop.

Imagine having two physical desks side by side. On one desk you keep your work — email, spreadsheets, documents. On the other desk you have your personal things — photos, a browser with news, music. Spaces does the same thing digitally. Switching between desktops is instant: a three-finger swipe on the trackpad or a keyboard shortcut takes you from one Space to another, and all your windows are exactly where you left them.

This is genuinely useful for people who do different things on their Mac at different times of day. A teacher might keep their lesson preparation in one Space and their personal web browsing in another. A small business owner might keep accounting software in one Space and email in a second Space. Seniors who want a less cluttered screen appreciate being able to put just a few apps on one desktop rather than having everything visible at once.

Spaces can also run apps in full-screen mode, which gives each full-screen app its own dedicated Space. When you make Safari full-screen, for instance, it gets its own Space, and you can swipe between your normal desktop and the full-screen browser without the browser window overlapping anything else.

Spaces is managed through Mission Control. Creating, rearranging, and deleting Spaces all happen from the Mission Control view, which you reach by swiping up with three fingers on the trackpad.

Mac Spaces: Create Separate Virtual Desktops for Different Tasks

Open Mission Control to see your Spaces

Create a new Space

Switch between Spaces

Move an app to a specific Space

Delete a Space you no longer need

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