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I tend to use Spaces a lot to organise my apps (e.g. work apps, communication apps etc.). And I use them in conjunction with an app switcher (Raycast).

Typically when I go to an app, the OS will navigate to the closest Space with a window from that app open. However, there are some apps (typically single window apps), that I'd like to always open in the current Space regardless of which Space it is currently open in.

An example of this is the Spotify app. Regardless of which Space I'm in, if I switch to Spotify, I'd like it to be immediately visible in my current Space.

I appreciate this deviates quite a bit from how windows work in macOS, but I wondered if there was an app/extension/hack that would enable this type of behaviour.

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  • I’m going to edit this to indicate you are not using stage manager and are using Mission Control to manage windows on macOS. Please make another edit if you have different requirements to your problem.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 3 at 11:31
  • Would you accept a Notification Center solution for this by using a widget? I don’t thing Spotify has designed this yet for macOS like they have on the iOS Lock Screen and widgets..
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 3 at 13:56

2 Answers 2

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I'm not sure this is exactly what you are looking for, but you can set an app to show on all displays as follows:

  • Launch the app.
  • Right click on the app in the dock to bring up the contextual menu.
  • Select the "Options" menu item.
  • In the "Assign To" section select "All Desktops".

The app will now appear on all desktops. If it is not running it will be launched on the current desktop. If it is running with no windows open it will appear on the current desktop when invoked. (If windows are open those windows will always appear on the current desktop.)

Here is a visual for Music:

enter image description here

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  • This is functionally exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately it's quite buggy so I think I may look into third party solutions, it seems to always show the app whenever swiping between spaces even if it wasn't the thing in focus. But I'll mark this the answer since it's the native solution.
    – rbhalla
    Commented Sep 4 at 12:51
  • Yeah, what I do is launch Music, start something playing, hide Music. Then it does not appear until I unhide it.
    – SteveM
    Commented Sep 4 at 12:58
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You can try using programs like Moom or Magnet to better control the placement of windows, but they may not have this feature. For something more specific, you can use Hammerspoon with a custom script to make certain programs always open in the current space. Hammerspoon allows for pretty deep customization of window management in macOS.

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  • I've heard a lot about Hammerspoon, I may give that a go, thank you!
    – rbhalla
    Commented Sep 4 at 12:52

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