Add Virtual Desktops with Spaces on the Mac

0:01
In this video, we’re going to take a look at spaces on the Mac with spaces, what we’re able to do is basically extend our display, we can create virtual monitors as an example. Then once we create these virtual monitors or these spaces, what we can do is we can move different applications or different windows into those other spaces. Let’s see what I mean. Let’s go to my Mac. So I have quite a few applications open here. And what I would like to do is view all of the windows, this is one of the notes. In this video, we’re going to look at spaces on the Mac with spaces, what we’re able to do is extend our display on the Mac. It’s almost like you creating virtual monitors or virtual displays, let’s see what I mean. Let’s go to my Mac. So I’m looking at my Mac here, and I have quite a few applications open and quite a few windows open. Being that this is a MacBook Air, it can get a little bit messy with all these ones, I do not have a large monitor on here. What would be really nice is if I could see all of these windows, I could see all of the open windows, and then also move some of these to a different space to a second monitor. The way that we do this is through Mission Control.

1:22
The spaces that we’re going to be talking about are managed through Mission Control. So how do I open up Mission Control? Well, if you have a MacBook with a trackpad, all you have to do is just swipe up with three fingers, you can also use the f3 key, and it is just an application. So if I go to my Applications folder here, you’re going to see I have Mission Control, I could put this in the dock and then just click on it to go into Mission Control. When we’re in Mission Control, what we’re able to do is not only see all of our open windows, but we can also create spaces and move those windows to different spaces. So let’s open up Mission Control. I’m just going to double click on this. So you can see how this works. Double click, and now we’re looking at Mission Control. When I’m in mission control, we can see all of my open windows. Remember when I click outside here just piles them all up.

2:15
I don’t know where my calendar is, I don’t know where some of the apps that I have open are, I have to move these windows around to get to them. While when I go into my mission control, I can see all of the windows, I want to go to any one of them, all I have to do is just click on it. So let’s go over to my calendar here. I click on it, and it opens up that window. But also what we can do is we can move some of these windows here, these applications to another space. Let’s go back into Mission Control. You’re going to see up at the top, we have desktop here. When I moved my cursor over top of it, watch what happens. It extends out and we have my desktop here. So what is this telling me? Basically, this is my one monitor, this is my display. Well, if we go over to the right, you’re going to see we have this little plus. And when I click on this plus here, watch what happens. It creates another display another desktop. So now what I’m able to do is switch between these two desktops.

3:19
How do I do that? Well, let’s go ahead and click outside of here, I’m in my desktop one, I want to go to my second desktop. Well, if you have a trackpad, all you have to do is just swipe with three fingers. And I’m in my second desktop, I swipe to the right with three fingers. I’m back at my main desktop, I can also use the CTRL key and use the arrows. So I hold down the control key and I click the right arrow, it takes me to that second desktop, I click on the left arrow while holding down the control key. It brings me back. Let’s go and add another desktop we can add more than two. And let’s move some of these windows around to those different desktops I want to separate my apps out. Remember I have let’s go into Mission Control. I have maps open, I have my calendar open, and I have my reminders open. Let’s put these different apps into different spaces to help better organize it. So what I need to do is I need to add two more spaces, I need to add one for reminders, one for calendar. And then I’m going to use one for my maps. So I go up to the plus here. I click on it two more times. So now we have my three extra desktops. So it’s almost like I have four monitors on my computer here. And I can easily switch between them by swiping with three fingers or use control in the arrows. So now I want to move these apps to those different windows. Well, let’s go with the maps first. All I have to do is just drag this up to the desktop I want so I’m going to go with desktop to here.

4:57
Now we’re going to go with my reminders and let’s put On desktop three, and then we’re going to go with my calendar. And let’s put this on desktop for. So now I have my Finder windows on desktop one along with Safari and notes. But my other apps are all open in other desktops. So now I’m going to click over here, I’m in my first desktop, we can see I have my Finder window, I have my notes, and I have Safari. That’s it. Now let’s go over to my second desktop. There’s my maps, what do you think we’re going to see when I swipe over again to my third desktop, my groceries and I can move this around, I can even open up a new window here. So now we have another new window in this desktop. And then when we go to my fourth desktop, there’s my calendar. And again, what I’m able to do is create new windows in here. And they stay within that desktop. So now this desktop here has four windows, this one has two, I’m just swiping with three fingers. So this one has one. And this one has my original windows, let’s go and add another space for Safari and my notes app, we’re just going to completely separate this out. Let’s just go wild here. So I swipe up with three fingers to get to Michigan control.

6:17
Again, I can open up Michigan troll in the Applications folder or use the f3 key. Now I go over to the plus here, tap on it two more times. And we’re going to take Safari and put it over here. And we’re going to take my notes and put it over here. So now all I have to do to switch between these different apps is just swipe. I want to go back into Mission Control, I swipe up. And now we can see all of my desktops up here, I can click on any one of them to open it up. If you want to close a space, let’s go back into Mission Control. If you want to close a space, what you do is you click on the X in the upper left hand corner, when I do that, what that’ll do is that’ll move any windows, it’s not going to quit out of any applications. But what we’ll do is remove any windows to your first desktop.

7:11
So when I close this one here, what it’s going to do is move Safari over to my desktop one. So I click on it. And now we can see Safari is in desktop one. So when I go and close this one here, this one has My Maps app, let’s go ahead and close that. I click on the X, and what’s going to happen is the maps is going to go to desktop one. So I click on it. And now we can see maps is on desktop one along with Safari. Last thing I want to mention with these spaces is when you open up an app and full screen, it does open it up in a space. So let’s go and open up my maps app here in full screen I’ll have to do is just click on the green die here and it’s going to enter in full screen. What it did here is it also created a space for it. So when I swipe up with three fingers to get to mission control, we can see we have my space. If I go and close this, I click on these arrows, it brings us back to desktop one and it is no longer in full screen. If I go over to Safari here, I go into full screen,

8:23
it’s going to open it up in its own space. And then if I close it, I can close it. If you do want to rearrange these, you can do that too. So let’s say I wanted to have this space here. Over to the left, all I do is just drag it there. Or I want to have this space here. I just drag it and move it. And when I’m done, I just click on it. And now I have my different spaces, I’m just swiping with three fingers to get to those different spaces. So that’s how we work with spaces. On the Mac. I’m showing you on Mac OS Monterey, but spaces has been around for several versions of Mac OS. So even if you’re using an older version of MacOS, you’ll still be able to use these spaces.

9:08
This is all done through Mission Control. So all you have to do is just open up Mission Control. To do that, you can swipe up with three fingers, you can have three or you can just open up the Mission Control App. From there, you’re going to see your spaces up at the top, you want to add a new space, you tap on the plus in the upper right hand corner. And then you can drag any windows over into that space. If you open up an app and full screen, it also opens up in a new space. You can rearrange those spaces. And then you can also close those spaces when you close the space. It does move any open windows into your desktop one space your first space. Spaces are something that I use on a daily basis. I would recommend just kind of toying with it playing around with it. Start out with something simple with just a couple of spaces. See how it works. And then once you get comfortable with it, you’ll find yourself using these spaces more often. And then you think so that’s how you use spaces on the Mac