How do I open mission control?

Swipe upward with three fingers on your MacBook trackpad, or press the Mission Control key on your keyboard (the key showing three rectangles, usually near the top row). If you are using an external mouse, you can go to System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control and assign it to a mouse button. All your open windows immediately spread apart across the screen.

How do I find and click the window you need?

With Mission Control active, move your mouse over the spread-out windows. Each window is labeled with the app name. Click any window to bring it forward and make it active. Mission Control closes automatically and your selected window fills the screen (or returns to its previous size).

How do I create a new space from mission control?

While Mission Control is open, look at the top of the screen. You will see a thin strip showing your Spaces (virtual desktops) if you have any, and a small plus (+) button in the top-right corner. Click the plus button to add a new Space. Drag any window from the main area up to the top strip to move that window to a different Space.

How do I move windows between spaces?

In Mission Control, you can drag any window from the lower portion of the screen up to a Space thumbnail at the top. This moves that app to the chosen Space. This is useful for organizing — for example, moving all your work-related windows to one Space and your personal apps to another.

How do I close mission control without switching?

If you open Mission Control and then decide you do not want to switch to a different window, press the Escape key on your keyboard or swipe back down with three fingers on the trackpad. Mission Control closes and you return to exactly what you were doing before.

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Mission Control is a built-in feature on Mac that gives you a bird's-eye view of everything open on your computer at one time. When you activate it, all your open windows spread across the screen, showing you every app and document you have running. Instead of hunting through a cluttered pile of overlapping windows to find what you need, you can see them all at once and click on exactly the one you want.

This is especially useful when you have many things open at the same time — a browser with several tabs, a document you are working on, your email, maybe a video in the corner. Without Mission Control, switching between these can mean clicking through the Dock, using Command + Tab, or digging through overlapping windows. Mission Control shows everything organized and laid out so the switch is instant.

Mission Control also shows your Spaces — the separate virtual desktops on your Mac. If you use Spaces to organize different types of work (more on that in the Mac Spaces guide), you can see and jump between them from Mission Control. New Spaces can be added directly from within Mission Control.

You can access Mission Control in several ways. The quickest are: pressing the Mission Control key on your keyboard (it looks like three rectangles), using a three-finger swipe upward on your trackpad, pressing Control + the Up Arrow key, or double-tapping the trackpad with two fingers (depending on your trackpad settings).

Mac computers — including MacBooks, the Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro — all support Mission Control. It has been a standard macOS feature since 2011.

Mac Mission Control: See All Open Windows and Switch Between Them at a Glance

Open Mission Control

Find and click the window you need

Create a new Space from Mission Control

Move windows between Spaces

Close Mission Control without switching

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