Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

smirking

macrumors 601
Original poster
Aug 31, 2003
4,438
4,810
Silicon Valley
I'm a heavy user of spaces. I rarely have fewer than four active spaces at any given time. I'll have my general computing needs in the first one, my programming window in another, and other tools in the other ones.

I'm also a one screen only user. I almost always use my MBP in clamshell mode because I have difficulty using more than one display at a time along with Spaces. Going between one screen and two messes up my Spaces shortcuts. Sometimes the space I want is stuck on display 1 and other times it's on display 2. That causes me to reassign programs to different spaces to get them where I want them, but then when I unplug and go back to one screen, everything's messed up and nothing is where I expect it to be so I have to revise my shortcuts and/or reassign programs back to their old spaces to get back to normal.

Has anyone found a way to deal with this? Is there some way to set your spaces so that it's conditional to whether you have an external display or not? Because switching back and forth between 1 and 2 displays causes so much friction for me, I rarely bother using that second screen even when I would like one.
 
Have you tried turning off Displays have separate spaces at the very bottom of the Desktop & Dock System Settings? This may solve your base problem.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: smirking
Have you tried turning off Displays have separate spaces at the very bottom of the Desktop & Dock System Settings? This may solve your base problem.

Hmmm... I've never noticed that setting! I'll give that a try and see what happens.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.