I used to have Spaces enabled on my old Mac system and loved it. A different virtual screen for different apps. On Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, however, I can’t figure out how to enable it and get Spaces working again and it’s driving me crazy. Help!
I know just what you’re talking about because I had the same issue with my new MacBook Pro when I got it and powered up. In fact, I sat with my old computer and compared System Preference panes and still couldn’t remember how to enable “Spaces”. Worse, if I went into System Preferences and searched for Spaces, it’d suggest Mission Control, mouse and Trackpad. That’s right, Mission Control used to be called “Mission Control & Spaces”. But now it’s not.
In fact, going to Mission Control and there’s nothing to do with Spaces there, which is more than a bit confusing.
Turns out that it’s a lot more tricky and subtle to enable Spaces than something as simple as going to a System Preference. I mean, really. Search for “Spaces” and here’s what you see:
Logically, open that up and there’s no trace of anything Spaces-related:
Confusing? Oh yeah.
Instead, what you need to do is actually go into Mission Control itself, which is usually accomplished with a four-finger-up swipe of your trackpad or a hot corner on your computer. Once you’re there, it’ll look like this:
There’s still no obvious way to enable Spaces, but the secret is to move your cursor to the top right of the Mission Control view, which will cause a “+” to magically appear:
That’s obvious, right? Well, click on it and the first time you’ve just enabled Spaces.
The second time you’ve added another Space, and on and on, as many as you prefer. Me? I run with five Spaces and find it tremendously useful.
Extremely helpful.
Maybe you could also write about shortcuts for spaces, for instance how to quickly switch to a certain space.
Thank you for this! I’ve been looking for this for a long time!! Cheers.
Totally what I was looking for! Thanks!
very helpful!!! thanks
Thanks a ton, that is very not obvious and its very confusing! I was worried for a second that it wasn’t possible on my new mac!!
Thanks a lot, Man! You saved my day.
THANK YOU!!! I’m SOOO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!
Dave – Thanks very much for answer. Experiencing 10.8 for first time – and got first two screens you described. I’m a huge Mac/Apple fan, but frequently wonder where I’d be w/out Google [and I’m decently knowledgeable; imagine it’s worse for ‘older’ generations.
Anyhow, this was extremely useful, particularly link for assigning specific spaces. You’re now a ‘bookmark’ that I’ll frequently reference….Best, KED
Thank you SO much!
Thank you so much! I’m really happy that “spaces” still exists.
Thanks! That is about the most unintuitive thing I have ever seen. I would never have got that. This system is so weird and inconsistent. It’s lost everything I used to love about Mac. 🙁
And, lo, the answer appears, Richard:
https://www.askdavetaylor.com/assign_apps_to_specific_spaces_mac.html
🙂
Thanks, but one thing I don’t get. I used to assign certain programs to always luch and operate in a certain specific Space desktop. Now I can create Spaces, but I don’t see where I can assign, for example, Excel to always open in Space #2, etc. Can you help with this – am I missing something obvious?
R
Thanks, this is very helpful.
Really cool stuff!!
I just moved from windows and helped me a lot since I had heard about “spaces”
Awesome, thanks for sharing. Another ‘win’ for mac. This and the new maps app on my phone are my ‘favorites’.
I agree with the above two comments – I have spent more time than I ever wanted to on this (there are a few other issues remaining, but I will trawl your blog before searching elsewhere). I was sure that Apple couldn’t have done away with it as they were, or rather are, still referring to Spaces generally, but then don’t go into any detail. (Need new editors?) They should be promoting the fact that you can add and add and add Spaces – it’s a great feature irrespective of how good or how many monitors you have.
Thanks for sharing.
Guy
Very helpful! Search for Spaces in the Help tool and you find nothing, too. I’m not sure why Apple made such great functionality such a huge secret. Thanks for the pointer.
Very useful, thanks a million for sharing
-D