Skip to main content

No auto-swoosh for me please

159 words·1 min

If you leverage macOS spaces for virtual desktops, you might’ve experienced a scenario where one of your screens always resets back to the current space you are on if you toggle to another one while working.

An example of this occurring is I’d be connected to a remote machine occupying all screens, but had to reference something in the Books app. Every time I would switch back to the Books app, my secondary monitor would quickly flip me back to the main space that I was on for that monitor. It was constraining because I’d constantly have to flip back and forth when I wanted to reference something.

I never scratched that itch until today and found it quick to disable. To disable the feature, you open up a terminal and run:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO
killall Dock

Which will disable the toggling, and you’ll remain on the screen you have switched to until you switch back.