Mac basics

What is Mission Control on Mac?

Mission Control is the feature that zooms your Mac out to show every open window and every desktop at once. It is one of the most useful things in macOS and one of the least explained. Here is what it does, how to open it, and how to get the most out of it.

Updated July 2026

Mission Control, in one sentence

Mission Control is the built-in window and desktop manager in macOS. When you open it, your Mac pulls back and shows you everything you have running: every open window, every virtual desktop (Apple calls these Spaces), and any apps that are in fullscreen. Instead of digging through overlapping windows, you see the whole picture and click the thing you want.

It has been part of the Mac since OS X Lion in 2011, when Apple merged the older Exposé and Spaces features into one screen. It is free, built in, and works the same way on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. There is nothing to install.

How to open Mission Control

There are four common ways to open it, and they all do the same thing. Use whichever fits your hands:

If F3 does nothing, your keyboard might need the Fn key held down for function keys, or the shortcut may be switched off. There is a full breakdown in our Mission Control keyboard shortcuts guide, including the hidden ones Apple ships turned off.

What you see when it opens

Three things fill the screen:

Spaces: multiple desktops on your Mac

The most powerful part of Mission Control is Spaces, which are virtual desktops. Think of each Space as a separate desk. You can put your email and calendar on one, a code editor on another, and a design tool on a third. Switching desktops swaps the whole set of windows at once, so you are not constantly shuffling things around.

To add a desktop, open Mission Control and click the + button in the top-right corner. To remove one, hover over its thumbnail and click the x. To move a window to another desktop, drag it onto that desktop's thumbnail in the top strip.

If you are coming from Windows or Linux and searching for "multiple desktops on Mac," Spaces is what you are looking for. Our guide to virtual desktops on Mac goes deeper on setting them up.

Settings worth changing

Mission Control has a handful of settings in System Settings → Desktop & Dock. Two are worth knowing about right away:

Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use. This is on by default and it silently reorders your desktops, which breaks any muscle memory you build. Most people are happier with it off. Here is how to stop your Spaces from rearranging.

Displays have separate Spaces. If you use an external monitor, this controls whether each display gets its own set of Spaces. We cover every toggle in the Mission Control settings guide.

The one thing Mission Control won't do

Here is the gap everyone hits eventually. Mission Control shows your desktops, but it labels them Desktop 1, Desktop 2, Desktop 3, and so on. It never shows what is actually on them. Once you have four or five Spaces, you are counting thumbnails to figure out which desktop has your email and which has your current project.

macOS has no built-in way to name a desktop. That is the whole reason we built SpaceJump. It lets you give each Space a real name and color, shows the current name right in your menu bar, and puts those names on the thumbnails inside Mission Control. You can also press Command + 0 to open a Quick Switcher, type a few letters of a desktop's name, and jump straight to it. Like Spotlight, but for your desktops.

Mission Control is excellent at showing you everything at once. SpaceJump just makes it obvious which desktop is which.

Frequently asked questions