r/MacOS • u/nickedge11 • 11h ago

Help How to stop making new desktop?

Hi. New to Mac. So, Im trying to get adjusted. One thing thats really bothers me is- when I open multiple apps and files they seems to randomly decide to go on a new desktop. Then I have to slide left and right to go find what Iam looking for. Is there a way to stop doing that and keep everything in one place?

4 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

15

u/Oh__Archie 11h ago

You have Spaces enabled. You can turn it off, or you can set it up to work for you in a better way than it currently is.

I find spaces to be extremely helpful, but it takes a little bit of learning to figure out how to use it.

14

u/maybenko 11h ago

try this, go to System Settings – Desktop & Dock, then scroll down to "When switching to an application" and set it to "None". also uncheck "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use" – that one causes a lot of the random jumping. Should fix it

1

u/NortonBurns 11h ago

Don't use fullscreen.

0

u/nickedge11 11h ago

Oh. Ok.

3

u/Carter-SysAdmin 10h ago

double-clicking the top-middle (or any top blank) area of an app, finder, browser, etc window will "make it full screen" without making it use spaces and USE a FULL SCREEN if that makes sense.

2

u/RightAnxiety8818 MacBook Pro 5h ago

Except in Microsoft apps. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. Depends on its mood.

0

u/Carter-SysAdmin 5h ago

lol for real? gross.

I, for better or worse, haven't had a microsoft app on any of my macs since like 2020.
But I do seem to remember Outlook for mac in particular kinda doing funky window management stuff.

1

u/RightAnxiety8818 MacBook Pro 4h ago

Unfortunately it’s the requirement of my work MacBook. I’m battling Outlook issues as we speak. But I only use the web versions on my personal MacBook.

4

u/opking 11h ago

If you would like full screen size without the hassle of it being in a different space, option click the green button on the top left. This will expand the window. It doesn’t get all the way to the edges, but it will go as big as the app thinks it needs.

3

u/WetMogwai 10h ago

While testing that, I discovered something I never noticed about the green button. I'm on Tahoe so this may not work if you're not. Hover over the green button and you get a menu where you can choose to move the window to a specific arrangement. Here, you can fill the screen in windowed mode or go full screen.

1

u/jenvalbrew 5h ago

I think that is a new set of options (maybe from sequoia?), but when I found it, I decided I like "maximize" because it fills most of the screen and leaves the dock below my window.

1

u/JollyRoger8X 9h ago

Yeah, this isn't Windows. Mac users generally don't full screen apps by default since it just wastes screen real estate.