Learn How To Use Mission Control In 5 Minutes

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at the basics of using Mission Control on your Mac. 

Mission Control is a tool built into macOS that helps you manage multiple windows on your Mac. So let's say you've got a Desktop with lots of different windows here. The most basic way to use Mission Control is to activate it to select a window to bring it to the front. You can activate Mission Control using the keyboard shortcut Control (that's Control, not Command) and Up Arrow. You can also use a trackpad gesture. Go into System Settings, go down to Trackpad and then look under More Gestures. You'll see here what you have set for your Trackpad Gesture. Either swipe Up with three fingers or swipe Up with four fingers. 

So when you activate Mission Control you get each window by itself. So you can clearly see how many windows you've got open and select one. Just click on the window that you want to bring to the front and it comes to the front. Use it again and you can bring another window to the front. This makes it easy to navigate around in your Windows without having to move them aside and click on a little sliver of a window that appears behind all the rest. 

But the real power behind Mission Control is the ability to simulate having multiple displays. These are called Spaces. So, for instance, I'll activate Mission Control here and you'll see at the top it says Desktop 1. If I move my pointer up there you'll see Desktop 1 represented but also a Plus Button here to the right. Click that and now you'll see Desktop 2. You can select which one you want to go to. So you can select Desktop 2 and you go there. Notice none of your windows are there. If you back into Mission Control and select Desktop 1 it goes back to the one with all of your windows. You can move windows to each Desktop.

So, I'll activate Mission Control again and I'll move this Notes window to Desktop 2 by simply dragging it there. I'll also move this Reminders window there. Now when I select Desktop 2 you can see I've got those two windows. When I select Desktop 1 you can see I've got the other windows. So it feels like I've got these two Displays, even though I can only see one at a time. Better still you can switch between these without entering Mission Control. Just use Control and the right and left arrows to move between the spaces very quickly. You can also use three or four fingers on your Trackpad, swiping left or right to move between spaces. 

You can have many more than just these two Desktop spaces here. You can add a third, fourth, and so on. If you want to get rid of the Desktop Spaces you could just bring up Mission Control and click the X here. If you do that with a Desktop Space that already has windows on it, those windows will just return to the previous space that they were at. So now everything is back to this one Desktop here. 

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When you're in Mission Control here you can use that same keyboard shortcut or trackpad gesture to move between the spaces without exiting Mission Control. You can then use this to move windows between the spaces. So I can move this Reminder's Window back to Desktop 1. Go to Desktop 1, move this Photos Window to Desktop 2. You can also rearrange the spaces by simply dragging them like that.

But in addition to Desktop Spaces, which can have multiple windows and allow you to see your Desktop Wallpaper and Icons behind them, you can also have two other types of spaces. One is a Full Screen Window. So you can take almost any window in any app, like let's say this Finder Window here. You can use the Green Button, click that and it becomes a Full Screen space. If I go into Mission Control now you can see I've got Desktop 1, Desktop 2, and a space named after that app. This is NOT a Desktop Space. There's no Desktop behind this window. The window, itself, is the entire space. You can Exit at any time by clicking that Green Button again and it returns to being a window in its previous Desktop Space. 

You can also do the same thing but of instead of with one window you can do it with two. They could be from the same app or different apps. So hover over the Green Button here and use Full Screen, but just left of screen or right of screen. You're given your other windows to decide what's on the other side. So I'll make Safari the right side here. This is now a Split View Space. When you're in this you don't have a Desktop behind them. It's two windows composing the entire space. Sometimes you can drag the line between to give more or less room to each one. You could also exit this by going into Mission Control and using the little button here at the top left or you can use the Green Button in one of these to remove one window and place it back on the Desktop, leaving the other window there as now a Full Screen Space. 

So those are just the basics. There are a lot more advanced things you can do with Mission Control if you go into the System Settings Desktop & Dock. Go to the bottom. You've got various settings for Mission Control. You can customize the shortcut for Mission Control. When you have more than one Desktop Space you also have options in the Dock for the Apps that you're using where you can set them to be assigned to either a specific Desktop or actually appear across all Desktops. 

To get the most from your Mac learn how to use Mission Control as it makes your one screen on your MacBook or iMac feel like multiple displays. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.